Picture : ANI / X
the debris inside the pipe on the 16th day of continued rescue efforts in Silkyara tunnel, according to officials.
As per official sources, a team of six specialists have reached the site to undertake the manual drilling work. They will go inside the 800 mm pipe of the tunnel to remove the debris manually. The team includes engineers from the Indian Army’s Madras Engineering Group as well as civlians.
Apart from the drilling machine, a hammer, a shovel, a trowel, and a life support device for oxygen will be carried by these specialised teams while going inside the tunnel.
The auger machine being used for horizontal drilling of the tunnel that got stuck inside the pipe was cut and removed earlier today using a plasma cutter. The auger machine stuck inside the pipe, produced 48 m of debris on the mouth of the tunnel, which will also be removed by the rat miners.
Rat miners are specialists in digging and drilling manually in narrow passages including tube mines who mostly work in mines and have the experience of drilling for hours.
The rat hole mining technique is generally used in coal mining, especially in regions that have difficult terrain.
“It is a challenging operation. We were called in from Delhi. We reached here yesterday. We are basically from Madhya Pradesh. We will try our best to complete the drilling process as soon as possible,” one of the civilian specialists who reached the site to carry out manual drilling told ANI.
Meanwhile, The remaining parts of the auger machine stuck in the rubble at Silkyara tunnel, where 41 labourers have been stranded for the last 15 days, were removed early on Monday.
Manual drilling will now start at the tunnel to prepare an escape passage for the trapped workers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Principal Secretary P K Mishra and Uttarakhand Chief Secretary S S Sandhu will visit Silkyara on Monday to review the rescue operation.
The auger drill — a corkscrew-like device with a rotary blade at the front end — that was drilling into the debris got stuck Friday evening, forcing officials to give up on the 25-tonne machine.
#WATCH | Uttarkashi (Uttarakhand) tunnel rescue | Micro tunnelling expert Chris Cooper says, “… All the debris (of the Auger machine) removed…(Manual drilling) will probably start after 3 hours…We have 9 meters of hand tunnelling to do. It really depends on how the ground… pic.twitter.com/ORRGlMovbH
— ANI (@ANI) November 27, 2023
Parts of the auger were left to be removed from an 8.15-metre area on Sunday night. Extracting the shaft and fins of the machine from the rubble completely was necessary to pave the way for manual drilling and pushing of pipes which is in the final stretch with around 12 metres more to go.
As the vertical drilling makes swift progress, former Engineer-in-Chief and Director General of Border Roads Organisation, Lieutenant General Harpal Singh (Retd) said that there is no other way left except manual method to reach the trapped workers in the Silkyara tunnel.
“There is no other way left except the manual method and this is also the safe one through which we can reach the labourers. In the current situation, the Auger machine that was stuck has been removed. Efforts are underway to remove the 1.5 meters of the damaged pipe. After its removal, strengthening and muck clearance, skilled labourers will go in with the help of the army. We hope this will be done soon,” Lt. Gen Harpal Singh (retd) said.
