Uttarkashi tunnel collapse: Drilling begins to create escape passage for trapped workers
economictimes.indiatimes.com
«If everything goes as planned, the trapped labourers will be evacuated by Wednesday,» he said after visiting the tunnel and taking an update on the operations from officials at the site.
Most of the day went into preparing a platform inside the tunnel to position the auger machine for drilling through the rubble.
The drilling machine and the pipes arrived at the site early on Tuesday.
The plan is to push through both 800- and 900-millimetre diameter sections of mild steel pipes — one after the other — into the rubble using drilling equipment and create an escape passage for the workers who, the officials said, are safe and being provided with oxygen, water, food packets and medicines through tubes.
There are eight 900-millimetre diameter pipes with a length of six metres each and five pipes of 800-millimetre diameter of the same length, the State Emergency Operation Centre said.
«According to the latest update, all 40 labourers trapped inside are safe and sound,» Superintendent of Police (Uttarkashi) Arpan Yaduvanshi told reporters after a visit to the site.
He said some medicines have been supplied as one of the trapped workers was feeling nauseous.
The son of Gabbar Singh Negi, one of the trapped labourers, was allowed to speak to his father for a few seconds on Tuesday.
«He said they are safe.
He asked us not to worry,» Akash Singh Negi told PTI.
A local priest was asked to perform a puja for the early and safe evacuation of the trapped workers.
A part of the tunnel being built between Silkyara and Dandalgaon on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri National Highway caved in on Sunday following a landslide.
