UTTARKASHI: A special ward at a nearby health centre was kept open and ambulances were on standby as a multi-agency attempt to free 41 men who were stuck in the Silkyara tunnel looked to be almost successful on Wednesday night. Up to 44 metres of an escape pipe had been inserted into the wreckage of the collapsed tunnel segment in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district as of 6 p.m., according to a Delhi-based official update. Earlier, authorities stated that in order to get to the workers who were stranded after a section of the tunnel under construction collapsed ten days ago, the US-made auger machine had to cut through a 57-meter stretch of debris. At this point, there were only 13 metres of debris left to drill through.When the auger machine hit a hard obstruction at about the 22-meter mark, the tunnel vibrated to the point where safety concerns were raised, forcing the suspension of drilling from the Silkyara end on Friday afternoon. Tuesday at midnight saw the start of the drilling again. Six-meter sections of steel pipes, each less than a metre in width, are forced into the escape route as the machine drills through. It is anticipated that the confined labourers will crawl out once the pipeway reaches the opposite end. In the evening, a team from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) was seen entering the tunnel. In advance of the evacuation, a group of fifteen physicians, including specialists in chest care, have been stationed at the location.A fleet of forty ambulances was to be kept on standby, with twelve already on standby at the scene. It was also anticipated that a helicopter would be reserved for the mission. The Chinyalisaur community health centre prepared a special ward to house all of the evacuated workers. According to officials, AIIMS, Rishikesh and all of the district’s hospitals are on alert. Optimism was expressed by workers’ relatives who communicated with them via a newly installed six-inch pipeline that was pushed through the debris late on Monday. “We were shown into the tunnel today, and we had a conversation with our relative. Sonu reassured me time and again that we would meet soon, so I shouldn’t worry,” said Devashish, whose brother-in-law is one of the 41 employees. We were informed by his coworkers that his cell phone was broken. We found out later that he was stuck in the tunnel when we saw his name in the newspaper,” he remarked. Bhaskar Khulbe, a former advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office, was optimistic during a press briefing in Silkyara at around 4 p.m., stating that another six-meter section of the rescue pipe had been inserted over the previous hour. “Hopefully the next two-three hours will be comfortable in terms of assembling for the next push and attaining what all of us are waiting for,” he stated. The “most crucial” portion of the stretch was between 40 and 50 metres, according to officials’ earlier statements.When Khulbe was asked to provide a schedule for the workers’ evacuation, he responded, “We hope to celebrate Bagwal with them,” which may have referred to Igas, a festival observed in the Garhwal region following Diwali. Igas will be celebrated on Thursday this year. In the event that the horizontal drilling from the Silkyara end fails, a number of backup plans are also underway. From the Barkot end of the tunnel, officials said, about nine metres of horizontal drilling had been completed. This is a much longer process that could take several days. On Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Narendra Modi checked in with Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami to get an update on the rescue effort. With the aid of an endoscopic camera inserted through the recently installed six-inch pipeline, the first images of the stranded workers were obtained early on Tuesday. The government said in a statement that the second lifeline was operating effectively and that there would be a sufficient supply of food items such as rotis, sabzi, khichdi, daliya, oranges, and bananas in the tunnel.
