(Dehradun) Rescue services redoubled their efforts on Monday in India to save 41 workers stranded for nine days in a collapsed tunnel, considering digging a new shaft to free them.
“All efforts are being made” and the workers “are safe and sound,” said in a statement a senior official from the state of Uttarakhand, in the north of the Himalayas, the region where the accident took place on 12 november.
Rescue teams communicate with trapped workers by radio. Food, water, oxygen and medicine are sent to them through a 15 cm diameter pipe. A new, larger pipe was put in place on Monday to send more aid.
Since the collapse of the tunnel under construction, excavators have been removing earth, concrete and rubble. But rescue operations were slowed by falling debris and repeated breakdowns of heavy drilling machines.
Drilling work was suspended on Saturday after a loud crack occurred the day before, raising fears that the vault could collapse.
The objective was to introduce a steel pipe of approximately 90 centimeters in diameter through which the workers would have been evacuated.
Rather than a horizontal rescue pipe, the rescue teams are preparing to dig a new well from the top of the hill, therefore favoring a vertical exit route. This well should have a depth of 89 meters.
“All possible efforts are being made,” Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Sunday after visiting the site.
He said if the drilling machine was repaired, it would be possible to reach workers by Tuesday, adding that crews were also considering several alternative routes.
“Bring them out”
Foreign experts are also mobilized, notably Arnold Dix, president of the International Association of Tunnels and Underground Spaces.
“We will find a solution and get them out,” he assured journalists. “A lot of work is being done here. It is important that not only the rescued men but also the rescuers are safe,” he added.
At the entrance to the tunnel, villagers erected a Hindu temple in honor of a local god, Boukhnag. The original temple had been moved to allow the construction of the tunnel, which for some of them would be the cause of the accident.
This tunnel is part of the infrastructure work launched by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in particular to improve access to strategic areas located on the border of the great Chinese rival.