© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Rescue operations proceed as night approaches, the place employees acquired trapped in a tunnel development collapse in Uttarkashi, northern state of Uttarakhand, India, November 27, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File picture
By Saurabh Sharma
SILKYARA, India (Reuters) – Rescuers in India are simply six or seven metres (20-23 ft) away from 41 males trapped in a collapsed freeway tunnel within the Himalayas for greater than two weeks, and are assured of drilling by means of to succeed in them on Tuesday, officers mentioned.
The lads, low-wage employees from India’s poorest states, have been caught within the 4.5 km (3 miles) tunnel in Uttarakhand state because it collapsed on Nov. 12.
So-called rat miners, introduced in on Monday to drill by means of the rocks and gravel by hand after equipment failed, made good progress in a single day, officers mentioned.
“About 6 or 7 metres are left,” mentioned Deepak Patil, a senior officer main the rescue, including that greater than 50 metres of an estimated 60 metres of particles had been bored by means of.
“Sure, 100%,” he mentioned when requested if the lads may very well be reached on Tuesday.
The lads have been getting meals, water, gentle, oxygen and medicines by means of a pipe however efforts to dig a tunnel to succeed in and rescue them with drilling machines have been annoyed by a sequence of snags.
Rescuers on Monday introduced within the “rat miners”, specialists at a primitive, hazardous and controversial methodology used principally to get at coal deposits by means of slim passages. Their title comes from their resemblance to burrowing rats.
The tunnel is a part of the $1.5 billion Char Dham freeway, one in every of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most formidable tasks, geared toward connecting 4 Hindu pilgrimage websites by means of an 890- km community of roads.
Authorities haven’t mentioned what precipitated the cave-in however the area is vulnerable to landslides, earthquakes and floods.
