Uttarkashi op: Manual drilling likely, ‘stress buster’ games given to trapped men

Manual drilling in a collapsed tunnel in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi where 41 workers have been trapped for the past 15 days is likely to begin on Sunday.

The rescue authorities are first cutting down the blades of the auger machine manually, which was damaged while drilling through the debris on Friday. This process is likely to be completed by today.

Drilling through the rubble at the Silkyara tunnel hit a roadblock for almost the entire day on Friday. 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”.

Manual drilling would involve individual workers entering the already bored 47-metre stretch of the rescue passage, drilling for a brief period in the confined space and then coming out to let someone else take over.

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.

Chief Minister Dhami said about 20 metres of the auger in the chute had been cut out. Meanwhile, a plasma cutter was being airlifted from Hyderabad to the rescue operation at the Silkyara tunnel site.

The Chief Minister 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 told news agency PTI.
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.