HYDERABAD: It's been 48 hours since eight people got trapped in a tunnel in Telangana. The rescue mission will be gruelling as the tunnel is clogged with water and mud. Efforts are being made to move water and mud with pumps of 100 horsepower capacity while the special force of the army hasn’t yet been able to get through the tunnel. In between, the air chamber and the conveyor belt were damaged, making the rescue operation a daunting task.

The mission team reaching the boring machine near the collapse site gave hope. Officials used loudspeakers to talk with the trapped workers but received no response. The possibility of workers falling for fatigue due to lack of oxygen, food, heat and pressure is likely.

Meanwhile, officials said that oxygen and electricity have been made available in the tunnel. The central government has assured Telangana that it will send an expert team including rat miners. The accident happened at 10 am on Saturday.

A part of the tunnel being constructed as part of the Srisailam Left Bank Canal Irrigation Project in Nagar Kurnool collapsed. Two project and site engineers and six workers are still trapped inside. They are the employees of the company contracted for the construction of the tunnel and the company that delivered the boring machine. They are natives of Punjab, UP, Jammu Kashmir and Jharkhand. The construction work of the tunnel was suspended for a year and started two weeks ago.

All eight people are stuck at a distance of 13.5 km from the entrance gate. But beyond 9 km, the conveyor belt was broken and covered with mud and water.

The mud and the water are about four meters high. The mission team cannot enter this situation. There was thought of drilling into the accident site, but the attempt was abandoned due to the possibility of the roof collapsing further.

A joint team of around 300 members from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), Army, National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL), Singareni Collieries and SDRF is involved in the rescue operation.