The 40 workers who were trapped when a road tunnel under construction collapsed in northern India on Sunday are alive, a rescue official announced on Monday.
“All 40 workers trapped inside the tunnel are alive,” Indian Disaster Response Force commander Karamveer Singh Bhandari said in a statement, adding that water and food were being sent.
The rescue teams managed to contact the survivors, first through a message on paper, and later managed to establish communication using radio devices.
An emergency services official in Uttarakhand state said authorities were pumping oxygen and sending “some small packets of food” into the tunnel through a pipe.
Durgesh Rathodi added that rescue teams used excavators to remove about 20 meters of debris and are currently 40 meters from the workers.
A police officer, Prashant Kumar, said more than 150 rescuers also used drilling equipment to remove debris overnight.
The collapsed part of the 4.5 kilometer-long tunnel is about 200 meters from the entrance, authorities told the Press Trust of India news agency.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, who has already visited the accident site, wrote on the social network
“The positive side is that the workers are not on top of each other and have a safe space of about 400 meters to walk and breathe,” another rescue services official, Devendra Patwal, told the Indian Express newspaper.
The collapse occurred early Sunday morning, in the Himalayan region, when a group of workers left the shipyard and replacement equipment arrived.
The tunnel is part of the Chardham Expressway, a flagship project of the federal government of India that is being built between Silkyara and Dandalgaon to connect the two important Hindu shrines of Uttarkashi and Yamnotri in Uttarakhand, a mountainous state that attracts many pilgrims and tourists. .
In January, Uttarakhand authorities moved hundreds of people to temporary shelters after a temple collapsed and cracks appeared in more than 600 houses due to land subsidence in and around the town of Joshimath.
Source: TSF
