[1/2]Members of rescue teams prepare to carry out a rescue operation after part of a tunnel under construction collapsed in Uttarkashi in the northern state of Uttarakhand, India, November 14, 2023. Uttarakhand State Disaster Response Force/Handout via Portal acquires license rights
LUCKNOW, India, Nov 15 (Portal) – Rescuers in the northern Indian mountains trying to reach 40 road workers who have been trapped in a collapsed tunnel for more than three days will soon receive help from a heavy drilling machine delivered by air will be flown to the site, officials said Wednesday.
The workers are safe and rescuers have been able to communicate with them since the collapse early Sunday, giving them food, water and oxygen via a pipe, but huge boulders have hampered efforts to dig an escape route for them.
A powerful Augur drill was flown from New Delhi, about 400 km south, in the hope of drilling through the rubble in which the men were trapped.
“The new plane has reached the nearest helipad. It is currently being assembled and will be sent to the site soon,” said the police chief in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, Ashok Kumar.
The men were working on the Char Dham highway, one of the most ambitious projects of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, which aims to connect four Hindu mountain pilgrimage sites via 890 km (550 miles) of roads, equivalent to 1.5 U.S. Dollars cost billions.
Up to 60 men were working the night shift in the 4.5 km long tunnel when the tunnel collapsed before dawn.
Men at the end of the tunnel were able to get out in time, but the 40 trapped men were working deeper in the tunnel.
News agency ANI on Wednesday showed footage of about a dozen angry workers outside the tunnel demanding quick rescue of their colleagues.
India’s Himalayas are prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods. Geologists, residents and officials blame rapid construction for the subsidence of the slopes.
The road project has been criticized by environmental experts and some work has been halted after hundreds of homes were damaged by subsidence.
Work on the tunnel began in 2018 and was originally scheduled to be completed by July 2022. Completion is scheduled for May next year, the government said in a statement before the collapse.
Reporting by Saurabh Sharma in Lucknow, written by Tanvi Mehta and Krishn Kaushik; Edited by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Robert Birsel
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