In Uttarakhand, a portion of tunnel stretching from Silkyara to Dandalgaon on the Brahmakal-Yamunotri national highway collapsed on Sunday.
Image Source- Hindustan Times
Giving information regarding the tunnel collapse, National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) senior officials said that Auger drilling machines have arrived at the site to evacuate 40 labourers who have been trapped under the collapsed tunnel.
Pipes to carry out rescue work at collapsed tunnel site
From Haridwar, 8 pipes have been fetched on trucks to carry out this entire process of rescue operation, more such pipes are expected to arrive at the disaster location to carry out the rescue operation, to create a hole and carry out the labourers from the trapped site.
However, the senior official had not yet conveyed the expected time which will take for the completion of this rescue operation.
The labourers have been trapped 55-60 metres below and the rescue teams including NDRF( National Disaster Response Force) and SDRF (State Disaster Response Force) had been able to dip the hole till 20 metres but due to disastrous circumstances the soil again fell into its place and evacuation operation for the labourers become more difficult.
However, according to the information given by officials, the workers trapped in the soil are in safe condition and are given continuous oxygen supply through the cylinders and a pipe inserted through the heap of the soil and have been provided access to food items using compressing with water pipes.
Image Source- Times of India
Technical committee under Uttarakhand government leadership
Under the leadership of the director of Uttarakhand Landslide Mitigation and Management Center, the Uttarakhand government formed a technical committee to look into the cause.
The major reason behind forming the committee is that it will prepare a report file of the disastrous incident and will submit it to the state government. The committee will have members from reputed institutes of India, including Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Central Building Research Institute, the Geological Survey of India and State Disaster Management Authority.
The tunnel collapse incident happened on November 12 morning and a total budget of 853.79 crore have been sanctioned for the same. As the sources informed to media personnels, none of the 40 labourers have been evacuated as on 14 November, two days after the incident happened.
At the starting phase when the incident happened, the media speculated landslide to be the prime cause of the Tunnel collapse, but the officials later informed that nothing can be said right now as the investigation is still going on.
Out of the trapped labourers, 15 people are from Jharjhand, 8 from Uttar Pradesh , 2 from Uttarakhand and Assam each, 3 from West Bengal and one from Himachal Pradesh.
Image Source- etvbharat.com
The reason behind the construction of this Tunnel was to ease the travelling of the pilgrims for Char Dham Yatra as the tunnel was expected to reduce the travelling time by one hour and will mitigate chances of travelling through mountainous roads prone to landslides and accidents.
The Uttarakhand government, the technical committee formed and the rescue teams are continuously doing their work efficiently for the rescue of labourers, however, any official update regarding the rescue of labourers is yet to be made from the officials side.
