AFP
Wed, November 15, 2023
Rescue teams in northern India are battling for a fourth day Wednesday to free 40 trapped workers (-)
India has sought advice from the Thai company that rescued children from a flooded cave in 2018 as it races to save 40 men trapped in a road tunnel, officials said Wednesday.
Excavators have been removing debris since Sunday morning from the site in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand to create an escape tunnel for the workers, all of whom are still alive.
Officials have "contacted the Thai company which rescued the children trapped in the cave", the state government's department of public relations said in a statement.
The statement was referring to the dramatic operation to rescue 12 boys from a junior football team and their coach who were trapped for more than two weeks in the Tham Luang cave complex.
No other details were given.
Authorities have also asked for help from engineering experts in soil and rock mechanics at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute as frantic efforts to free the men stretched into a fourth day.
Rescuers said on Wednesday they had sent medicine to the 40 men, trapped since the road tunnel they were building collapsed on Sunday.
"After consultation with doctors, medicine has been sent to the workers through pipes," police officer Prashant Kumar told AFP from the site. "Contact is being maintained with the workers."
No details were given about the condition of the men or how many of them were sick.
Food and oxygen had also been sent to the trapped workers, he said.
- 'War footing' -
But as rescue teams removed the vast piles of rubble, more fell from the broken roof of the tunnel and two labourers working to remove the debris were injured overnight Tuesday, Kumar said.
The pace of drilling was "slow because of natural causes", but efforts were being made on a "war footing", Uttarakhand state police chief Ashok Kumar said in a statement on Wednesday.
The air force on Wednesday flew in a second drilling machine on a C-130 Hercules military plane on Wednesday to "speed up rescue work" after the first one broke down, he said.
Dozens of colleagues of the trapped workers protested outside the tunnel on Wednesday, blaming authorities for "slow rescue work", one of the protesters told AFP.
Photos released by government rescue teams soon after the collapse showed huge piles of rubble blocking the wide tunnel, with twisted metal bars from its roof poking down in front of slabs of concrete.
- 'Patience and trust' -
Engineers are using heavy machinery to drive a steel pipe about 90 centimetres (nearly three feet) wide through the debris, wide enough for the trapped men to squeeze through.
"We should keep our patience and trust," Ashok Kumar said. "I am sure that we will rescue all the labourers."
The 4.5-kilometre (2.7-mile) tunnel was being constructed between the towns of Silkyara and Dandalgaon to connect Uttarkashi and Yamunotri, two of the holiest Hindu shrines.
The tunnel is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's road project aimed at improving travel conditions between some of the most popular Hindu shrines in the country as well as areas bordering China.
Experts have warned about the impact of extensive construction in Uttarakhand, where large parts of the state are prone to landslides.
Accidents on big infrastructure projects are common in India.
In January, at least 200 people were killed in flash floods in ecologically fragile Uttarakhand in a disaster that experts partly blamed on excessive development.
Construction worker Hemant Nayak told AFP that he had been in the tunnel early on Sunday when the roof caved in, but he had been on the right side of the collapse and escaped.
Small amounts of dirt had been falling into the tunnel but "everyone took it lightly", he told AFP on Tuesday.
"Then suddenly a huge amount of debris came and the tunnel was closed."
Uttarakhand tunnel collapse: Rescuers race to save 40 workers trapped in India tunnel
Meryl Sebastian - BBC News
Tue, November 14, 2023
Officials established contact with the trapped men using walkie-talkies on Sunday night
Rescuers are racing to save 40 workers trapped inside a collapsed tunnel in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand since Sunday morning.
The workers, who were building the tunnel, were trapped when part of it caved in due to a landslide.
Officials have been able to establish contact with the men and have been providing them with food, water and oxygen while they try to get them out.
They say they expect to rescue the workers by Tuesday night or Wednesday.
On Tuesday morning, the state government said rescue teams were "preparing to drill and insert a metal pipe of 900mm diameter in the part of the tunnel blocked by debris" to reach the workers.
Officials hope the men will be able to squeeze through the narrow pipe to safety.
The tunnel in Uttarkashi district is part of the federal government's ambitious highway project to improve connectivity to famous pilgrimage sites in Uttarakhand. The mountainous state, where several Himalayan peaks and glaciers are located, is home to some of the holiest sites for Hindus.
The accident occurred at 05:00 local time (23:30 GMT) on Sunday when a portion of the Silkyara tunnel, around 200m away from its opening, collapsed while the workers were inside, senior police official Arpan Yaduvanshi told BBC Hindi.
A landslide nearby caused heavy debris to fall on the tunnel, leading to its collapse. The mounds of debris cut off oxygen supply to the workers.
Authorities said they established contact with the trapped men on Sunday night using walkie-talkies.
A pipeline, which was laid for supplying water to the tunnel for construction work, is now being used to supply the trapped men with oxygen, food and water, they added.
A portion of the tunnel collapsed on Sunday morning
Rescuers will have to dig through several metres of debris before they can start the evacuations. Excavators and other heavy machines are bring used to dig through the debris.
State Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said national and state disaster relief teams were working together on rescue efforts.
"All the workers trapped inside the tunnel are safe and every effort is being made to get them out soon," a statement from his office said.
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