Uttarkashi op: Army steps in as work to remove busted drill machine goes on

The Indian Army has stepped in for the rescue operation at a collapsed tunnel in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi where 41 workers have been trapped for the past 15 days.

They were moving their equipment to the tunnel site as work was on to remove the auger machine which was busted when it encountered a metal obstruction while drilling through the debris.

Plasma cutters that arrived from Hyderabad were being used to manually dismantle the damaged blades of the American-made auger drilling machine. The process is likely to be completed by today. Authorities have also begun vertical drilling on the hilltop above the Silkyara tunnel to create an alternate route for the trapped men to be rescued.

On Friday, horizontal drilling through the rubble at the Silkyara tunnel hit a roadblock for almost the entire day when the auger machine broke down. But the extent of the problem was known on Saturday when international tunnelling expert Arnold Dix told reporters that the auger machine was “busted”.

Once the auger machine is taken out from the escape pipe, rescue authorities will start manual drilling for around 10 metres.

At a media briefing, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) member Lt Gen (retd) Syed Ata Hasnain said the operation “could take a long time”.

Heavy vertical drilling equipment was brought to Silkyara tunnel site and moved up a one-and-a half-kilometre hill road constructed by the Border Road Organisation (BRO) in the past few days.

Dix, the international tunnelling expert, expressed “confidence” that the 41 men trapped inside the Uttarkashi tunnel would be out “by Christmas”, which is still a month away.

“The drilling, augering has stopped. It’s too much for the auger. It’s not going to do anything more. The mountain has again resisted the auger, so we are rethinking our approach,” he said, adding the workers remained safe.

The 25-tonne auger drilling machine, now out of commission, included an auger — a giant corkscrew-like device with a cutter at its end. It created a horizontal passage of 46.9 metres into the rubble so far, out of the estimated total length of 60 metres.

A steel chute had been pushed through, in sections, up to this point where the rotary blades were stuck, followed by the long auger.

The rescue operation at the Silkyara tunnel site may face another challenge as the weather office has predicted a possibility of rainfall between November 26 to November 28. According to the IMD forecast, the weather will be cloudy with chances of rain or thunderstorms.

Clear weather is expected to prevail from November 29, the IMD said.

Chief Minister Dhami held a high-level meeting with all the agencies and officials of the Uttarakhand government engaged in the rescue operation at the Silkyara tunnel site.

In a post on X, Dhami said the government’s top priority was evacuating the workers. “Doctors have been instructed to keep in constant touch with our worker brothers and regularly check their health,” he added.

Several families of the trapped workers were anxious about their well-being and complained that the rescue operation was slow. They said the workers were getting frustrated and impatient.

Some of the families camped near the site and occasionally took updates from the authorities on the status of the operation.

The rescue effort began on November 12 when a portion of the under-construction tunnel on Uttarakhand’s Char Dham route collapsed following a landslide, cutting off the exit for the workers inside.

The workers are in a built-up two-kilometre stretch of the tunnel. They are being sent food, medicines and other essentials through a six-inch wide pipe constructed and installed by the rescue authorities.

Amid the uncertainty over their rescue, the trapped workers have been given mobile phones to play video games and board games such as ludo, and snakes and ladders to bust their stress, an official said.

A landline facility has been set up at the tunnel in order to keep the workers connected with their family members, officials said. The facility has been set up by the state-run BSNL and a handset will be given to the workers trapped inside the tunnel.

An endoscopic camera has been used to get live visuals from beyond the collapsed stretch.

Chief Minister Dhami said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been taking daily updates about the rescue operation at the Silkyara tunnel site. He said the Prime Minister gave an assurance to his government that it would help to safely pull out all the men trapped inside the tunnel.