Vertical drilling expected to be completed in 2 days. Horizontal drilling by auger machine stopped after it broke down. Plasma machine from Hyderabad removing parts from rubble.
Rescue operations stopped Thursday after teams encountered problems in digging a horizontal path to trapped men, even though they had just 15 more metres of debris to push through.
Drilling work to rescue the trapped men was halted again Friday night, in yet another setback to the multi-agency effort. Auger machine apparently hit a metal object.
The complex operation to rescue 41 trapped men, which has hit several snags, picked up in the last few days after the heavy drilling machine proved most successful.
A 41-bed ward at the community health centre has been readied for the workers trapped, and ambulances are waiting outside the tunnel to rush them there.
The 4.5-kilometre Silkyara-Barkot tunnel in Uttarkashi, which was under construction on a national highway, collapsed in the early hours of 12 November.
Former advisor to PMO, Bhaskar Khulbe, surveyed rescue operations Wednesday & said workers trapped inside partially collapsed Silkyara Tunnel were in 'high spirits', rescuers also 'positive'.
ThePrint saw bottles packed with khichdi — meant to be sent to the workers Monday — being emptied and cleaned near collapse site. The snag was later officially confirmed.
The first audio-visual contact was established Tuesday after a camera was pushed in through a 6-inch pipe; the workers received hot khichdi in bottles through this ‘lifeline’ as well.
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