Telangana Tunnel Collapse: Survival Chances 'Very Remote', Says Minister (image:x.com/10NDRF)
Nagarkurnool, Telangana: A massive rescue operation has been progressing in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district to evacuate the eight workers trapped in Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel. Though all efforts are being made to rescue the workers, the survival chances are “very, very remote,” Telangana Minister Jupally Krishna Rao said.
According to Minister, rescuing activity would take at least three to four days, as the collapse site is packed with muck and debris, posing it a challenging task for the rescuers.
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“Muck has piled up too high inside the tunnel, making it impossible to walk through. They (rescuers) are using rubber tubes and wooden planks to navigate through it,” PTI reports a minister is saying.
The workers got trapped in the SLBC tunnel after a partial collapse of the ceiling on Saturday morning. While some workers managed to escape, eight got trapped. No contact has been able to establish with them even after 48 hours.
The eight trapped persons comprise two engineers, two operators and four labourers. They were identified as Manoj Kumar (Uttar Pradesh), Sri Niwas (Uttar Pradesh), Sunny Singh (Jammu and Kashmir), Gurpreet Singh (Punjab), Sandeep Sahu (Jharkhand), Jegta Xess (Jharkhand), Santosh Sahu (Jharkhand) and Anuj Sahu(Jharkhand).
Around 300 trained personnel from multiple agencies, including 128 from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), 120 from the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), 23 from Singareni Collieries and 24 from the Army, are actively participating in the operation. The NDRF teams encountered heavy water seepage in parts of the tunnel between the 11th and 13th km overnight and early Monday morning, Indian Express reports.
Endoscopic and robotic cameras were brought to the site for the rescue operation. The NDRF Dog squad has also been deployed to assist in the operation. Rat miners, who previously helped to save construction workers from the Silkyara Bend-Barkot tunnel in Uttarakhand in 2023, joined the rescue team.
“Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy is constantly monitoring the ongoing rescue operations at the accident site. The Chief Minister Revanth Reddy is constantly reviewing the situation regarding the SLBC accident. The Chief Minister has been closely monitoring the rescue operations and has been talking to the ministers and senior officials several times to get to know the situation. Ministers Uttam Kumar Reddy and Jupally Krishna Rao closely monitored the rescue operations that continued relentlessly for the second day to rescue the 8 workers trapped in the tunnel,” Telangana CMO office posted on X.
