On Sunday evening, at least 12 workers were rescued from a smaller tunnel in the same area.
After a glacier burst in Uttarakhand on Sunday caused flash floods that left 18 dead and over 200 missing, a massive operation has been launched to rescue over 30 people trapped inside a tunnel.
Due to flooding, in Chamoli district’s Tapovan, a 12-foot high and 15-foot wide tunnel was blocked with slush and debris, trapping workers inside. According to officials, the tunnel is over 1.6 km long with just one entry. It was hard to pinpoint where the workers were trapped or tell whether they were together at all, the officials said.
Hundreds of personnel and locals used earthmovers and shovels in the mission to unclog the tunnel.
Personnel from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and state disaster response teams worked overnight to clear the tunnel.
“About 100 metres inside the tunnel is cleared and accessible, and it looks like about 100 metres of debris more will have to be cleared. This will take a few more hours,” ITBP spokesperson Vivek Kumar Pandey was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
On Sunday evening, at least 12 workers were rescued from a smaller tunnel in the same area.
Over 300 ITBP personnel and 200 others from the army and disaster teams are involved in the operation.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
