In a breakthrough in the week-long tunnel collapse rescue operation in Telangana, the whereabouts of four of the eight trapped workers have been located, state Excise Minister Jupally Krishna Rao said on Saturday.
After attending a meeting with officials alongside Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy, Krishna Rao said significant progress had been made in the past two days.
"In my view, the whereabouts of four persons have been located through radar," he told reporters at the site, expressing hope they would be rescued by Sunday evening.
The remaining four are believed to be trapped beneath the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM), he said.
Asked about the condition of those found, the minister reiterated his earlier statement that the chances of survival were remote.
Rescue teams are cutting through the 450-ft TBM to clear a path, officials said.
500 Personnel from the NDRF, Army, Singareni Collieries, and specialist rat miners are working continuously to extricate the trapped workers from the collapsed Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel, Nagarkurnool Superintendent of Police Vaibhav Gaikwad said.
The eight trapped workers have been identified as Manoj Kumar (UP), Sri Niwas (UP), Sunny Singh (J&K), Gurpreet Singh (Punjab), and Sandeep Sahu, Jegta Xess, Santosh Sahu, and Anuj Sahu, all from Jharkhand.
Of the eight, two are engineers, two are operators, and the remaining four are labourers from Jharkhand. The engineers and labourers are employed by Jaiprakash Associates, the contracting firm for the SLBC tunnel project.
State Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy, Excise Minister Jupally Krishna Rao, and Chief Secretary Santhi Kumari have left for the accident site, sources said.
