A portion of under construction tunnel from Silkyara to Dandalgaon on the Yamunotri National Highway collapsed at around 5:30 am on Sunday , leaving workers trapped inside. Rescue operations entered the sixth day on Friday as authorities continue to battle against time to evacuate the 40 constructions workers’ trapped inside an under construction tunnel in Uttarakhand for over 120 hours as of 6:30 on Friday , the powerful drilling machine brought from Delhi has been able to drill through 21 meter’s of debris.
Devendra Patwal Uttarakhand district disaster management officer said ” The new drilling machine has been able to drill through 21 meters of debris until 6:30 am . It is good progress ” He said ” In the first four day of operation , two rescue attempts to cut through the wall of rock blocking the tunnel had failed.
In the first attempt , rescue workers had tried to dig through the rubble using heavy excavator machine and sought to prevent more debris from falling using the shotcrete method, loose rock and sand kept collapsing rendering the strategy unsuccessful.
In the second attempt they tried to create a safe passage using an auger machine and fitting in large pipes inside which worker can Crawl out . This plan failed as the drilling machine being used was rendered useless as it got damaged after the drill hit a boulder on Tuesday night.
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