LUCKNOW, INDIA:
Excavators began drilling with heavy machinery on Tuesday to repair a wide steel pipe that will help evacuate nearly 40 Indian workers trapped inside a damaged Himalayan highway tunnel that collapsed two days ago in northern India’s Uttarakhand state.
The 4.5km tunnel, which was being built on a national road that is part of a popular Hindu pilgrimage route, caved in around 5:30am on Sunday (24:00 GMT Saturday).
“We are supplying food, water and oxygen to the stranded workers and officials are in constant touch with all of them,” said Devendra Singh Patwal, a disaster management official.
Excavators have been removing debris for two days to carve a path to reach the workers and await the delivery of a wide steel pipe that will be pushed into an opening in the excavated debris to safely pull the workers.
Patwal said it was not easy to ascertain the time required to remove the workers.
A team of geologists from the state government and educational institutions has arrived to determine the cause of the accident, he added.
There were about 50 or 60 workers inside the tunnel and about 10 or 20 of them came out after their shift ended as they approached the exit and the rest were trapped after the collapse, the Indian Express newspaper reported, citing a construction worker. he made it safely.
“Initially, we thought it might be a small collapse and started removing the debris as best we could,” Rajeev Das, the worker, told the newspaper. “But soon, we realized it was a challenging search and rescue mission.”
The region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods, and the incident follows subsidence events in the state that geologists, residents and officials have blamed for rapid construction in the mountains.
Work on the tunnel section began in 2018 and was originally intended to be completed by July 2022, but has now been pushed back to May 2024, according to a statement from the Indian government.
Reading: At least 40 Indian workers trapped in tunnel collapse
Controversial work
The Char Dham pilgrimage route is one of the most ambitious projects of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. It aims to connect four important Hindu pilgrimage sites of North India through 889 kilometers (551 miles) of two-lane road being built at a cost of $1.5 billion.
However, some work has been stopped by local authorities after hundreds of houses were damaged by landslides along the routes, including in Uttarakhand.
The project has faced criticism from environmental experts.
The project’s impact on areas along the route was not properly assessed before construction began, a report by a Supreme Court-appointed panel of experts said in July 2020.
When it approved the Char Dham road in 2021, the Supreme Court said that wider roads would be beneficial in defending India’s borders.
He warned, however, that the government should heed the committee’s concerns and come up with a concrete strategy to protect the environment.
The head of the commission resigned last year, saying he was disappointed that its recommendations had not been implemented.
The federal government has publicly stated that it used environmentally friendly design techniques to make geologically unstable land safer.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami told news agency ANI on Tuesday that the state will review work on all under-construction tunnels to ensure they are completed safely and authorities are better prepared to deal with potential emergencies .
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