Drilling at Silkyara tunnel halted, operation to evacuate workers hit again

Drilling at the collapsed Silkyara tunnel to rescue 41 men trapped inside for 12 days was halted again on Friday in yet another setback to the multiagency effortAn official said the auger drilling machine faced a hurdle apparently a metal object a little after drilling resumed Friday a day after officials had put the operation on hold following technical problemsThose problems were set right earlier in the day and the 25tonne machine was restarted in the evening According to one official the boring continued for about an hour before the drill bit hit the metal girderThe multiagency rescue effort began November 12 when a portion of the underconstruction tunnel on Uttarakhands Char Dham route collapsed trapping workers who were still insideAs the machine drills sixmetre sections of a steel pipe are welded together and pushed into the narrow passage Once this steel chute crosses the stretch of debris of the collapsed portion the trapped workers would be pulled out on wheeled stretchersRescue workers suggested in the evening that the drill bit was now being pulled out through the passage already bored by the machineThe two hurdles in two days have come as a blow to anxious relatives who have been camping at the site for the past several daysBefore the brief period of drilling on Friday 468 metres of the 800 mm wide steel pipe had been pushed into the drilled passage out of the collapsed stretch estimated to be about 60 metre long The sixinch wide tube for supplying food and other essential items to the workers had travelled 57 metresThe latest setback comes just hours after officials expressed hope that the operation could be over soon provided no further obstacles came in the wayA ground penetrating radar used for the first time in the operation had indicated that the next stretch of 54 metres did not have any major metal hurdleIn the morning former advisor to the Prime Ministers Office Bhaskar Khulbe told reporter that the issues that stalled the drilling on Thursday had been set rightWe have 1214 metres more to go And I hope if all goes well we might conclude the operation by Friday evening he had predictedOver Thursday night officials said the auger machines platform was strengthened with quicksettling cementWorkers went over 45 metres inside the passage to cut off the damaged 12 metre front end of the steel pipe an operation in confined space that took several hours The portion of the pipe had bent after hitting a hurdleA damaged portion of the augers blade was also repairedBut later in the day the fresh snag forced the operation to be paused again Garhwal range IG KS Nagnyal told PTI that arrangements are in place to take the rescued workers to medical centres under police escort through a green corridorRoad Transport and Highways Minister V K Singh who has been camping in Uttarkashi since Thursday visited the Silkyara site during the day to take stock of the operationChief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has been staying at nearby Matli and visited the disaster site again on Friday Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked to Dhami once again for updatesThe NDRF conducted a mock drill at the site An NDRF jawan went into the escape passage pushing a wheeled stretcher tied to a rope He was then pulled outHe said there was enough room inside the pipe and he had no difficulty breathing during the exerciseFortyone ambulances are stationed outside the tunnel to rush workers after their evacuation to Chinyalisaur community health centre where a separate ward has been set up with 41 oxygensupported beds for themSimilar arrangements have also been made at the Uttarkashi district hospital Trauma and ICU beds have also been readied for them at AIIMS Rishikesh where they could also be airlifted if requiredThe trapped workers are being sent food medicines and other essentials through the sixinch wide pipeA communication system has been set up using the pipe and the workers relatives have spoken to them An endoscopic camera was also pushed through this pipe allowing rescue workers to see the condition insideThe workers are in a builtup twokilometre stretch of the tunnel Alternative rescue plans include drilling from above the tunnel an option that could take up to 45 daysSome work including mobilisation of machinery has already been done over the past few days on these alternatives approachesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever