A breakthrough has proven elusive even as rescue operations at the partially collapsed Telangana's Srisailam Left Bank Canal tunnel entered the sixth day on Thursday. Eight workers have been trapped in the tunnel since February 22 and a state minister had said on Wednesday that the rescue operations would be completed in two days.
Several teams, from the Army, Navy, National Disaster Response Force and the rat miners who rescued the labourers trapped at the collapsed tunnel in Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi in 2023 are at the site and work has begun on cutting parts of the Tunnel Boring Machine and other obstacles that have prevented rescuers from accessing the portion of the structure where the workers are trapped.
Nagarkurnool Superintendent of Police Vaibhav Gaikwad said the damaged part of the conveyor belt in the tunnel is expected to be repaired during the day on Thursday to ensure that debris can be transported out.
"Yes, it's already (gas cutting machines have gone inside). Yes, it has already started last night," Mr Gaikwad told news agency PTI.
The official, however, said it was difficult to predict whether the rescue operation would be completed on Thursday.
#WATCH | Nagarkurnool, Telangana | SLBC tunnel collapse: Visuals from Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel where rescue operation is underway to rescue the workers trapped inside the tunnel after a portion of the tunnel collapsed on 22nd February.
— ANI (@ANI) February 27, 2025
(Source: SDRF) pic.twitter.com/ajSzMXJT5q
The rescue efforts were intensified late on Wednesday after a high-level meeting attended by tunnel experts and Telangana ministers Uttam Kumar Reddy and Komatireddy Venkat Reddy. Irrigation Minister Uttam Reddy had said that a "concrete plan" has been put in place and the teams have decided to undertake dewatering and desilting of the tunnel. This is being done to counter the biggest challenge in the rescue effort, which has been the mud and sludge obstructing access to the area where the workers are stuck.
The collapse occurred 14 km inside the tunnel and while good progress was made initially, it has been hampered because of 7-9 metre high silt deposits in the final 40-metre stretch.
"The assessment yesterday was that the people going in to rescue and bring out the survivors would themselves be at great risk," Uttam Reddy had said on Wednesday.
"We now have a well-defined plan," he said, adding that alternate access routes "including approaching from the side and the main exit" are being explored to expedite the rescue.
"We will be going with greater speed for saving the survivors and for all rescue and relief operations... We will finish everything in two days," he had said.
#WATCH | Nagarkurnool, Telangana | Visuals from inside the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel where an operation is underway to rescue the workers trapped inside the tunnel after its portion collapsed on 22nd February.
— ANI (@ANI) February 27, 2025
(Source: Rescue teams) pic.twitter.com/SLgPVvFTz2
Workers Leaving The Site?
A senior government official told PTI that there are 800 people working on the Srisailam Left Bank Canal project, of which 300 are locals and the remaining are from states like Jharkhand, Odisha, Punjab and UP.
When the official was asked about reports that labourers are planning to leave the construction site after the collapse, the official said, "The company has constructed residential camps for the workers. Initial panic will be there. Maybe some individuals want to go back. But we have no reports of workers leaving en masse.
The eight trapped workers are Sandeep Sahu, Jegta Xess, Santosh Sahu and Anuj Sahu from Jharkhand, Manoj Kumar and Sri Niwas from Uttar Pradesh, Sunny Singh from Jammu and Kashmir, and Gurpreet Singh from Punjab.
Telangana Minister Krishna Rao had said on Monday that the chances of the workers' survival are "very, very remote".
(With inputs from agencies)
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