The rescue operation to save 40 workers trapped inside a tunnel in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi is in full swing. There have been hiccups with no success so far as earlier two attempts to save the 40 trapped men went in vain.
Now, a new powerful high capacity drilling machine brought all the way from New Delhi on Friday morning has been pressed into the service.
The machine is slowing inching closer towards the 40 trapped men inside the tunnel, the officials said.
For now it has drilled up to 21 metres through the rubble, inching closer to the 40 labourers trapped in an under-construction tunnel.
According to the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), the workers need to drill up to 60 metres to insert 800 mm and 900 mm diameter pipes – one after the other — till an escape passage is created.
All about new-drilling machine and rescue plan:
The rescuers have brought in state-of-the-art, American-made “horizontal dry drilling equipment with auger” from Delhi.
The officials said the equipment and machines for a possible Plan C are in place.
The rescue plan remained the same – using the “trenchless” technique and creating a passage with 900 mm wide mild steel pipes that the workers can crawl through.
Earlier, a heavy-duty drilling machine bored through 12 metres of rubble of the collapsed tunnel on the Char Dham route.
Officials said in the evening that a six-metre section of a steel pipe had been inserted into the bored passage. Another section was being welded into it.
The plan is to insert 800 mm- and 900 mm diameter pipes – one after the other -- with the help of the giant drill till an escape passage is created for the workers stranded beyond the collapsed portion of the under-construction tunnel.
After a smaller drilling machine failed to do the job, IAF's C-130 Hercules planes brought the US-made auger machine, in parts, from Delhi to an airport 30 kilometres away.
The 25-tonne piece of equipment was installed overnight.
The new auger machine was flown in after the first drilling machine turned out to be too slow and technical issues developed, officials said.
Also, falling debris inside the tunnel damaged the first machine and injured two rescue workers on Tuesday.
Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways V K Singh, who visited the rescue site, set “two or three days” as the “outer limit” for the new machine to get the job done.
But Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, who said Thursday that all tunnel projects in the state will now be reviewed, appeared more optimistic.
"I have been told that the new drilling machine has already penetrated five to seven metres through the debris,” Dhami told reporters earlier in the day in Dehradun. “We hope it would soon reach the trapped workers, drilling at the rate of five to 10 metres every hour."
Earlier unsuccessfull rescue attempts:
At first, when the 30-40 metre portion of the tunnel collapsed on Sunday morning, rescue workers had tried excavating the rubble using an earth moving machine.
The stretch with the debris begins 270 metres from the mouth of the tunnel at its Silkyara side.
Incident:
On Sunday the under-construction tunnel on the Yamunotri National Highway, meant to connect Silkyara and Dandalgaon in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district, collapsed.
40 trapped workers:
While officials say the men are safe – communication has been established via walkie-talkies and they are being supplied food and oxygen via a pipe meant to supply water – over four days have elapsed since they got trapped.
Some of the workers trapped inside have complained of minor headaches and nausea. Delivery of essential medicines, multivitamins, glucose and dry fruits is being ensured through a six-inch pipe.
People trapped inside the tunnel are labourers hailing from Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, as per the District Emergency Operation Centre.
