Sukhdev Singh and his assistant Gurdas have not slept for two days, working their machine in a relentless effort to drill a 1.3-metre-wide hole through the mountain. All through, they have been praying they aren’t too late. Amritsar man Sukhdev, driver-cum-operator of an advanced hydraulic drilling machine, is part of a 50-strong team of engineers, technical supervisors, drilling experts and geologists that has been working round-the-clock to reach workers who were trapped after part of a Rs 82-crore under-construction traffic tunnel on the Kiratpur-Nerchowk-Manali National Highway collapsed at Ghumarwin in Bilaspur on the night of September 12. Rescuers established contact with two trapped workers on September 17 — and have since been communicating with them. In a video chat late afternoon on Saturday, the workers seemed in good spirits, officials said. No contact has been made yet with a third worker who was also trapped. [related-post] The operation appeared to have reached its final phase on Saturday, with the district administration saying the drilling was complete, and the “countdown” to reaching the workers had begun. Around 9.30 pm, however, the drilling machine developed a snag — the second in two days — halting work and forcing the operation to be put off at least until late morning on Sunday. “This is one of the toughest jobs of my life,” said Sukhdev. “In states like Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat or Maharashtra, a machine of this kind would be able to drill 40 metres in four hours. Here in the mountains, I have taken four to six hours to drill a metre.” The machine, which was deployed three days ago, first developed a technical snag on Friday night, delaying the operation and forcing the rescuers to change their strategy on Saturday. “The final action to drop NDRF men inside the tunnel through a hydraulic lift in an especially designed tube was delayed by eight or nine hours,” Bilaspur SP Balbir Thakur said. The National Disaster Response Force is at the spot, along with personnel from the Border Roads Organisation (BRO), SVJN Limited, the Jaypee Group and the Himalayan Construction Company, which is building the tunnel. Deputy Commissioner Mansi Sahay Thakur is coordinating the operation. “Today at 5 pm, we had drilled a 39-plus metre bore. It was a big breakthough. The countdown has begun. The drilling is done. The process of inserting casing pipes in the cavity has started. My guess is we are just a few hours away from evacuating the trapped men. Let us keep our fingers crossed. This is a big test,” Thakur said. The DC said the rescue teams will enter the shaft to cut the steel ribs on the surface of the tunnel to create a passage. Ahead of the final push, NDRF personnel conducted a mock drill at the site on Saturday. The horizontal rescue operation being carried on simultaneously, too, has made significant headway, with a rescue pipe having pushed 53 metres through the debris. But the engineers have pinned their hopes on the vertical drilling. “We are praying to God that the ordeal ends,” Manjit Singh of Himlayan Construction Company said. Some 25-30 workers were on duty at the site before the tunnel collapsed. All but three had come out after their shift was over. Two of the trapped workers are from Mandi district; the other is from Sirmaur.
