Uttarakhand tunnel collapse: Indian Army to conduct manual drilling today

UTTARKASHI: 16 gruelling days have passed since 41 workers got trapped inside a tunnel in Uttarakhand with rescue operations bringing no respite. On Sunday, Madras sappers, an engineering group within the Indian army arrived at the location to kick start an alternative method of manual drilling.

The tunnel is located almost 86m down from the hill surface. As of now, 22m have been drilled and the team believes to achieve the target within 100 hours’ time. The American drilling machine stuck inside the pipe in the tunnel is broken beyond repair. Attempts are being made to remove this broken part and dig it into the tunnel manually. Attempts are also being made to cut the drilling machine and insert the pipe from the outside with mechanical help. If this target is achieved, all 41 workers trapped inside will be brought out today itself.

15 people from Jharkhand, eight from UP, five from Bihar and Odisha, three from Bengal, two each from Uttarakhand and Assam and one from Himachal have been trapped inside the tunnel. The incident happened on November 12th, when a sudden landslide fell upon the tunnel and put the workers in the dark.