Finance
New Delhi: Efforts to rescue 41 workers trapped in an underground Uttarakhand tunnel were paused briefly, officials said Thursday morning, after the auger drilling holes into the hillside hit a metal obstruction.
Drilling resumed only after the metal obstruction has been removed. Officials have told NDTV the rescue operation could take another six to seven hours.
“We have covered a majority of the distance and there is (only a) little work left. Our teams are continuously trying to overcome technical problems… we are taking advice from experts. Not possible to say when it will end,” Uttarkashi District Magistrate Abhishek Ruhela said.
“We are at the front door and are knocking on it… we know the guys are there on the other side,” Arnold Dix, one of several international experts also being consulted, said.
Two additional teams of experts – for tunnelling and welding – are now at the site.
“A total of three people have come here… we are tunnelling experts and we will take an update of the rescue operation going on here,” RD Dwivedi, a Chief Scientist from Roorkee’s Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research, told news agency ANI.
Mr Dwivedi and his colleagues were rushed to the rescue site in a helicopter.
According to ANI, welding experts have been brought in from Delhi; Radhe Raman Dubey, one of the welders already on site, said, “We are here to weld pipes inside the tunnel. Five welders have come (and) we will do it with the help of welding machines.”
The rescue operation – which involves pushing three-feet-wide pipes through holes drilled in the debris and/or hillside, to allow the men to crawl to freedom – was expected to be completed early this morning. As of midnight, less than 10 metres separate rescue teams from the cavern in which the workers have been trapped since November 12.
Over 44 pipes have been inserted so far in horizontal drilling efforts.
This is the second time drilling has been stopped because of a metal obstruction; the first was on Sunday, when a metal cutter was used to remove the object before drilling resumed.
“We found steel rods in the debris. The machine couldn’t cut those rods (so) NDRF (National Disaster Response Force) personnel will cut them,” a rescue officer, Harpal Singh, had said.
Drilling was also paused on Friday after rescue officials inside the tunnel heard a “cracking sound”. The National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited – one of five organisations in this op – said then work had been stopped as there is a “strong possibility a further collapse may take place… and accordingly activity has been stopped”.
The entire operation has been of a start-stop nature as officials take care not to cause a second collapse – one that could prove fatal to the 41 men trapped inside. As a result, the government has refused to commit itself to a specific timeframe about the men’s rescue.
