SILKYARA, India, Nov 20 (Portal) – Rescuers pierced a new pipeline on Monday to deliver cooked food to 41 workers trapped for more than a week in a collapsed tunnel in India’s Himalayas, saying preparations were underway to begin vertical drilling, pull it out.
The men have been stuck in the highway tunnel in Uttarakhand state since the November 12 collapse and are safe, authorities say, because access to light, oxygen, dry food, water and medicine is already available through a smaller pipe.
Authorities have not said what caused the 4.5-kilometer-long tunnel to collapse, but the region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods.
“We managed to achieve a breakthrough in piercing a six-inch pipe,” said Anshu Manish Khalkho, director of the state-run National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation (NHIDCL), which is building the tunnel.
Khalkho said horizontal drilling through the rubble – which had been halted on Friday due to a snag in the machinery and fears of a new collapse – would now resume as the new pipeline had been pushed through, but he did not give a timetable.
The men received nuts, puffed rice, chickpeas and other dry food via the smaller line. They are limited to a 2km section of the tunnel, rather than 50 meters as previously reported, authorities said.
They are now receiving hot food, including rice, lentils, soybeans and peas, Prem Pokhriyal, a doctor speaking to the trapped workers, told Portal.
[1/3]Rescuers move machinery past a tunnel where workers are trapped after part of the tunnel collapsed in Uttarkashi in the northern state of Uttarakhand, India, November 19, 2023. Portal/Saurabh Sharma LICENSE
A rescue mission is currently underway in the Silkyara Tunnel in Uttarakhand to free 41 workers trapped inside after a landslide.
“Today they demanded chewable vitamin C tablets and they were provided,” said Pokhriyal. “Everyone seems fit and well at the moment.”
In addition to horizontal drilling, rescuers are considering five new plans to get the workers out, including vertical drilling from the top of the mountain.
Khalkho said new heavy machinery for vertical drilling would arrive on the road in a day or two. The state-run Border Roads Organization is building hill paths for the machines from both ends of the tunnel and one of them will be ready late Monday or Tuesday, district official Abhishek Ruhela said.
Desperate families of nine of the 41 men have reached the tunnel site in Silkyara, high in the hills of Uttarakhand. The captured men are low-wage workers, mostly from poor states in the north and east of India.
“I went into the tunnel to talk to my brother through the steel pipe and he asked me whether the government is actually working to save them or not,” said Ashok Kumar, whose brother Santosh Kumar is one of the 41.
“How long can he survive indoors eating this puffed rice and chickpeas? “How long will they stay inside?” said Ashok.
Reporting by Saurabh Sharma in Silkyara, additional reporting by Shivam Patel in New Delhi; Writing by YP Rajesh; Editing by Nick Macfie
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