The 41 workers trapped in Uttarakhand's Silkyara tunnel for the last 11 days are likely to be rescued in the next few hours or by tomorrow, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) member Lt Gen (retd) Syed Ata Hasnain said on Thursday evening.
Rat-hole mining may be illegal but the talent and experience of rat-hole miners were used in the rescue operation to save the 41 workers trapped in the Silkyara tunnel, a National Disaster Management Authority member said on Tuesday.
A plasma cutter was flown in from Hyderabad on Sunday to cut and remove parts of the auger machine stuck in the rubble inside the Silkyara tunnel where 41 labourers have been stranded for the last 14 days.
"Once he comes out, we will never allow him to work here again," a distraught Chaudhary said on Sunday, waiting for the rescue of his son, who has been stuck inside the collapsed tunnel in Silkyara along with 40 others for two weeks.
The monsoon spelt mayhem in several parts of the country on Monday, particularly Mumbai where local train services and flight operations were hit and everyday life disrupted as well as Assam that was grappling with floods yet again.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on Friday said no progress has been made since Thursday in drilling through the debris at the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand to rescue 41 trapped workers but assured that the drilling by auger machine will start soon.
A high performance drilling machine was brought in Uttarkashi from Indore on Saturday to pierce through the rubble of the collapsed tunnel on the Char Dham route and was being assembled before it is deployed to resume drilling, officials at the site said.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami Wednesday met the workers rescued from the Silkyara tunnel and kept under medical observation at a hospital in Chinyalisaur and handed over Rs 1 lakh to each of them.
A senior Uttarakhand official at the site said drilling was complete.
Since the yatra began, as many as 28 tourists en route to Kedarnath have died due to various reasons.
Rescue operations to evacuate 41 workers trapped in the tunnel resumed on Thursday morning after an iron mesh that had come in the path of the auger machine drilling an escape path was removed.
Larger diameter pipes have also been inserted up to a length of 42 metres through the debris on Sunday morning to provide enough food and other essentials to the trapped workers, a control room set up at the site said.
Three experts from Western Coal Fields, a subsidiary of Coal India Limited, camped at the Silkyara tunnel site from November 20.
Anil Bediya, one of the 41 labourers who were rescued from a collapsed Uttarakhand tunnel after 16 days, survived the ordeal by eating muri (puffed rice) and licking water dripping from rocks.
Bhandari, a three-term Congress legislator who was also a minister in the state in the past, joined the BJP in the presence of its senior leaders, including Union Minister Piyush Goyal and the party's national general secretary Dushyant Kumar Gautam.
Microsoft's Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella, in communication with employees, said the company will align its cost structure with revenue and customer demand.
Drilling at the collapsed portion of the tunnel to rescue the trapped men was halted again on Friday night, in yet another setback to the multi-agency effort.
In the video, the workers, wearing yellow and white helmets, are seen receiving food items sent to them through the pipeline and talking to each other.
Sukhram, all of 22, reached his village at 1 am to a rousing welcome after staying trapped in the Silkyara tunnel for 17 days.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Monday visited the Silkyara-Barkot tunnel site for a review of the rescue operations being carried out there to evacuate 40 labourers trapped inside since Sunday morning following its partial collapse.
A total of 86 metres have to be drilled vertically to prepare an escape passage. Pipes of 1.2 metres in diameter have to be laid vertically through the top of the tunnel on which work began on Sunday as a second option to reach the stranded labourers.
We need to have patience as it is a dangerous operation,NDMA member Lt Gen (retd) Syed Ata Hasnain said.
The auger machine was facing repeated obstructions in the rubble in the past few days.
'I feel numb with the trauma we have been going through ever since we first got the news. For close to two weeks, we have been hearing my child will be rescued today. That today never comes'
He further said that the "focus is on horizontal drilling" as rock formation has created challenges for vertical drilling.
Rescue work at the collapsed Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand was virtually on hold Sunday as the agencies involved in the effort set themselves up for the next stage -- adopting multiple approaches to reach the 41 men trapped inside for a week.
'India has gone digital. They talk about the success of India's Chandrayaan mission but they cannot evacuate our people trapped for around a week'
The round-the-clock rescue work is being carried out by 165 personnel from multiple agencies, including the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force, Border Roads Organisation and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, the State Emergency Operation Centre said.
Officials said in the evening that a six-metre section of a steel pipe had been inserted into the bored passage. Another section was being welded into it. The plan is to insert 800 mm and 900 mm diameter pipes -- one after the other -- with the help of the giant drill till an escape passage is created for the workers stranded beyond the collapsed portion of the under-construction tunnel.
Online travel portals are flooded with flight and train bookings, hotels teeming with requests for accommodation, and spiritual merchandise on e-commerce platforms is selling like hotcakes. As the consecration ceremony of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22 draws near, Indians across the country are putting their travelling boots on as the temple frenzy catches on. India's largest travel technology (traveltech) platform MakeMyTrip (MMT) has witnessed a substantial four-fold increase in bookings for Ayodhya compared to the previous year.
The notification issued by the Union Environment Ministry also exempts projects pertaining to the expansion of terminal buildings at airports (without an increase in the existing area of the airport) from seeking green nod.
The vertical approach was one of the at least five options on which preparatory work had begun some days back, as anxiety mounted over the fate of the men trapped in the under-construction tunnel on Uttarakhand's Char Dham route.
Inching closer to their goal, rescuers have inserted wide pipes up to 45 metres through the rubble and will have to drill another around 12 metres to reach the 41 workers trapped inside the collapsed tunnel in Silkyara for 10 days, officials said Wednesday afternoon.
The labourers have been trapped since Sunday morning when a part of the tunnel collapsed following a landslide.
The 41 workers, who were rescued from Uttarakhand's Silkyara tunnel in a multi-agency rescue operation, kept their spirits up while trapped inside by taking morning walks and practising yoga, a rescued worker told Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Rescue workers pulled out all 41 workers trapped in Uttarakhand's Silkyara tunnel in a multi-agency rescue operation that hovered between hope and despair for 16 days.
Drilling at the collapsed Silkyara tunnel to rescue 41 men trapped inside for 12 days was halted again on Friday, officials said.
Here is the timeline of the disaster and the rescue efforts that followed.
Boring through the rubble of the collapsed Silkyara tunnel was put on hold again on Thursday apparently after cracks appeared in the platform on which the drilling machine rests, in a fresh hurdle to the rescue of 41 workers trapped inside for 11 days.
A six-inch pipe has been laid at the Silkyara tunnel through which nutritious food and medicines could be supplied to the 41 labourers, trapped for over a week after parts of the under-construction structure collapsed following a landslide.
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