Efforts to rescue 41 workers trapped inside the Silkyara under-construction tunnel in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi entered the 15th day on Monday. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is working to retrieve broken parts of the auger machine while manual and vertical drilling are also being done to make an escape route for the trapped workers. Meanwhile, two BRO officials were injured after their SUV was hit by a private bus near the Silkyara tunnel site on sunday afternoon, police said. The accident occurred just half a kilometre away from the tunnel, when three Border Roads Organisation (BRO) officials were on the way to the site in their official vehicle.
Rescuers are drilling into the hill above the Silkyara-Barkot tunnel and had bored nearly 20 metres on the first day of adopting the new approach on Sunday. Rescue workers have to drill down 86 metres to reach the tunnel. National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) managing director Mahmood ahmed said vertical boring would be over by thursday if there are no hurdles. As the drilling progresses, 700-mm wide pipes are being inserted to create an escape passage. A little distance away, a thinner, 200-mm probe is being pushed in. It has reached the 70-metre mark.
The vertical approach was one of the at least five options on which preparatory work had begun some days back, as anxiety mounted over the fate of the men trapped in the under-construction tunnel on Uttarakhand’s Char Dham route. The vertical boring option was picked as the next best alternative after the latest in a series of snags that hit the horizontal drilling operation from the tunnel’s Silkyara-end, where an estimated 60-metre stretch of rubble faced rescue workers.
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