DEHRADUN: It has been over a week but there is no word yet on the fate of the 40-plus workers trapped in the Uttarkashi tunnel.
With a horizontal rescue shaft into the rubble of an under-construction tunnel in Uttarkashi getting stuck due to drilling equipment failure by more than a day, officials scampered to expedite other options parallelly, including a platform for a vertical hole to evacuate 41 labourers stranded behind the debris.
The headcount of the stuck labourers went up by one on Saturday, embarrassing officials and annoying relatives of the workers. The 41st labourer was identified as Deepak Kumar, a resident of Gijas Tola in Muzaffarpur, Bihar.
The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) hopes to build an alternative route to the tunnel by Sunday afternoon for drilling the vertical hole. “One option is to make a four-six-inch long hole to provide essential items to the trapped people,” said R S Rao of the Directorate General Border Roads. If possible, a 3 ft diameter hole will also be made to evacuate the labourers. But other experts are wary as they fear it could trigger further collapse from the roof of the tunnel.
Other plans on the table include perpendicular drilling, said Bhaskar Khulbe, former advisor to the prime minister and now OSD in the Uttarakhand government.
With the US-made drilling machine developing a snag, a similar high-performance auger machine from Indore was being assembled at the accident site to resume horizontal drilling, officials said. The equipment from Indore was airlifted by the IAF.
Meanwhile, Deputy Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office Mangesh Dabral reached Silkyara to take stock of the situation. Also, an expert from an Australian consultancy company that is associated with Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd has reached the site.
With anxiety mounting as the labourers have been stranded in the tunnel for a week, angry workers led by Supreme Court advocate Prashant Prasad staged a strong protest against National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) and Navayuga Engineering for delay and failure in rescuing them. “The company wants to save the tunnel but not the poor labourers,” they alleged, adding the stranded workers are crying and losing confidence.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami tried to assuage their concerns. “The government stands with the families of the trapped workers. Their safe and timely evacuation is our priority,” Dhami said.