Emergency services in India redoubled efforts on Monday to rescue 41 workers stranded in a collapsed tunnel for nine days and are considering digging a new shaft to free them.
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“All efforts are being made” and workers “are safe and sound,” said a senior official from the north-Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, the region where the Nov. 12 accident occurred.
Rescue teams communicate by radio with trapped workers. Food, water, oxygen and medicine are supplied to them through a 15 cm diameter tube. A new, larger pipe was laid on Monday to send more help.
AFP
Since the collapse of the tunnel under construction, excavators have removed earth, concrete and rubble. But rescue work was slowed by falling debris and repeated failures of heavy drilling equipment.
Drilling work was halted on Saturday after a loud bang occurred the previous day, raising fears that the vault could collapse.
The aim was to insert a steel pipe with a diameter of around 90 centimeters through which the workers would be evacuated.
AFP
Instead of a horizontal rescue pipe, rescue teams are preparing to dig a new well from the top of the hill and therefore prefer a vertical exit route. This well is said to have a depth of 89 meters.
AFP
“All possible efforts are being made,” Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Sunday after visiting the site.
He said if the drill is repaired it would be possible to reach workers by Tuesday, adding that crews were also considering several alternative routes.
“Take her out.”
Foreign experts are also being mobilized, in particular Arnold Dix, President of the International Association of Tunnels and Underground Spaces.
AFP
“We will find a solution and get them out,” he assured journalists. “There is a lot of work going on here. It is important that not only the rescued men but also the rescuers are safe,” he added.
At the entrance to the tunnel, the villagers built a Hindu temple in honor of a local god, Boukhnag. The original temple had been moved to allow for the construction of the tunnel, which for some of them would be the cause of the accident.
This tunnel is part of the infrastructure work initiated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in particular to improve access to strategic areas on the border of the major Chinese rival.