More than one hundred rescue workers in northern India on Tuesday struggled for a third day to save workers trapped underground after the road tunnel they were building collapsed.
Excavators have been removing debris since Sunday morning from the site in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand to create an escape tunnel for the 40 workers, who are all alive.
“Our biggest breakthrough is that we have established contact and there is a supply of oxygen and food,” Uttarkashi district’s top civil servant Abhishek Ruhela told AFP on Tuesday.
“Whatever is necessary for their survival is being done,” he said, adding that oxygen was being pumped into the tunnel and small food items like dry fruit were being provided to the workers.
The State Disaster Response Force said on Tuesday rescuers had spoken to the trapped workers via radio.
Ranjit Kumar Sinha, a senior disaster management official, told reporters at the site he was hopeful workers could be freed by Wednesday, adding that there was enough oxygen where they were trapped “for about five to six days”.
Construction worker Hemant Nayak told AFP that he had been in the tunnel early on Sunday when the roof caved in, but he had been on the right side of the collapse and escaped.
Small amounts of dirt had been falling into the tunnel, but “everyone took it lightly”, he said. “Then suddenly a huge amount of debris came and the tunnel was closed,” he added.
The 4.5 kilometer tunnel is being constructed between the towns of Silkyara and Dandalgaon to connect two of the holiest Hindu shrines: Uttarkashi and Yamunotri.—AFP
