8 trapped after Telangana tunnel collapse, rescuers race against time; PM dials CM

According to rescuers at the spot, there is water in the tunnel because it is being built to carry Krishna River water to Nalgonda district. The work has been going on for the past five years. “There is water all around the tunnel and there has been seepage into the tunnel from the hillocks above. This seepage is reduced to some extent by the roof of the tunnel, and it is this roof which has caved in,” a senior rescuer explained.

The first step in the rescue will be “dewatering” or pumping out water from the tunnel, the official said.  Once the water is drained, the next task is to use the conveyor belt used for excavation to send people about 9 kilometres into the tunnel.

“The rest of the area will be covered by drones so that we do not risk the personnel who go in,” the senior rescue official who spoke to The Indian Express explained. The eight workers are believed to be trapped after 13.5 km  into the tunnel. The diameter of the tunnel is 9.5 feet.

However, drilling from above to reach the workers is a near-impossible option, another official told The Indian Express. “Thick rock sheets above the head of the tunnel structure mean rescuers have ruled out the possibility of drilling from the top to reach the location of the collapse,” a senior official said. To add to this, there were two collapses inside the tunnel, rescuers said. “There were 50 people in total in the tunnel. When the first collapse happened and 42 people were retreating, about 150 metres away, there was another collapse. So the overall stability of the tunnel has to be assessed by the engineering team,” the rescuer said. The trapped workers have been identified as Manoj Kumar and Sri Niwas from Uttar Pradesh, Sandeep Sahu, Jagta Xess, Santosh Sahu and Anuj Sahu from Jharkhand, Sunny Singh from Jammu and Kashmir, and Gurpreet Singh from Punjab.

The trapped men include two Indian engineers of the American tunnelling firm The Robbins Company, while the rest are employees of Jaiprakash Associates Ltd. “There is a 15-metre working area between the rock which has collapsed and the tunnel boring machine. They are stuck there,” an official told The Indian Express. Authorities confirmed that the ventilation system inside the tunnel remains functional, ensuring oxygen supply to the trapped workers. The Telangana government is reaching out to tunnel rescue experts, including the team which rescued workers from Uttarakhand’s Silkyara tunnel during a collapse there last year.

‘Exploring options’

Irrigation Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy met Glen Maynard, the Robbins’ site engineer, and took stock of the situation.  He said that when the men started working around 10 am, they witnessed water and mud leaking from one side of the tunnel.

“Within a few moments, a geological event occurred due to which the collapse started. They started evacuating the workers. All those who were on the tunnelling machine and around it were evacuated and accounted for. However, those who were in front of the machine were trapped. Eight are trapped some 14 kilometres inside the tunnel,” he said.