Tunnel rescue hits fresh hurdle in its final stretch

Officials working to rescue 41 workers trapped inside a tunnel in Silkyara in Uttarakhand for the past 13 days were unable to make any progress through the debris on Friday as the drilling could not resume a day after a metal object in the rubble damaged the blades of the machine, people familiar with the operation said.

- Amit Bathla

Drilling still remains to be completed through another 10-12 metres of the debris even after the auger machine has managed to cut through 46.8 metres. Once drilling is complete, evacuation pipes will be installed to bring out the 41 trapped workers.

Senior officials who are part of the evacuation process said that they hope to be able to make contact with the workers on Saturday, if they face no more obstacles.

On Thursday, drilling was put on hold around 1pm after the platform on which the equipment was mounted got destabilised after the auger machine's drill bit damaged the steel pipes used in the construction of the tunnel. Officials said the auger machine had to be disassembled and repaired.

The main problem, officials said, was that the "evacuation pipe" being pushed through the 800mm wide hole being drilled got warped, and the drill machine could no longer cut through.

"The steep pipes had come in the way of the auger machine, and ended up bending the 800mm evacuation pipe we were pushing. The mouth of the other side of pipe ended up getting narrower, and the auger couldn't push through it. Our team had to chop 1.2m off the pipe which we had pushed into the debris. This process took us around 7-8 hours," said Neeraj Kharwal, secretary to the Uttarakhand government.

Since this is at least the fifth time that rescue officials have now faced obstructions in the drilling process, officials said they have now used ground penetration radar (GPR) to scan the remaining debris.