Indian rescue workers plan to dig a new well to free 41 workers trapped in a collapsed tunnel for a week after halting drilling work over fears of more falling debris, authorities said Saturday evening.
Bhaskar Khulbe, a senior government official involved in the relief operations, said plans were being made to dig a well from above. “We are exploring all options to save the workers,” he said.
Rescue workers are working to remove debris from a road tunnel under construction in the northern Himalayan state of Uttarakhand after part of the tunnel that workers were supporting collapsed a week ago. Construction is currently underway.
But work to drill tons of earth and rock into the tunnel to reach workers was halted on Saturday after a loud crack occurred the day before, raising fears that the ceiling could collapse.
The aim was to insert a steel pipe with a diameter of around 90 centimeters through which the still living workers would be evacuated.
Forces planned a period of “four to five days at most” to release the workers, Mr. Khulbe added, without giving further details.
For its part, the Press Trust of India news agency said that “preparations have begun for drilling a vertical hole from the top of the hill.”
Indian media also broadcast a photo of an excavator clearing earth from the top of the hill above the tunnel.
Rescuers communicate with the trapped men via radio. Food, water, oxygen and medicine were also supplied to the workers via a 15 centimeter wide pipe.
But relatives said the workers, stuck in a 400-meter-long room since November 12, were desperate, Indian media reported.
“They are crying (…) They started asking us if we had lied to them about the efforts to save them,” one of them told the press on Saturday, without giving his name.