At least 40 Indian workers are trapped inside a collapsed Himalayan highway tunnel near LUCKNOW, India. The workers have been confined for over 38 hours and will spend another night in the tunnel pending the arrival of rescue material. Excavators are removing debris to carve out a path to reach the workers, and contact has been established with them. Oxygen and food are being supplied through compression pipelines.
The incident comes after events of land subsidence in Uttarakhand state, which is prone to landslides, earthquakes, and floods. Geologists, residents, and officials have blamed the subsidence on rapid construction in the mountains.
Rescue teams are waiting for the delivery of a wide steel pipe that will be used to safely pull out the trapped workers. Devendra Singh Patwal, a disaster management official, expects the workers to be rescued within the next 24 hours.
Despite being trapped, the workers have access to water, oxygen, and food for instant energy like dry fruits. There is also enough light in the space they are confined in.
The tunnel, part of a Hindu pilgrimage route, was being built on a national highway. It is 13 meters wide and 15 meters in height with the workers trapped in a 2-kilometer space.
Around 80 policemen, 20 fire services officials, and 60 disaster management officials are involved in the rescue operations. They are communicating with the trapped workers through walkie-talkies. The exact cause of the accident is still unknown.
The tunnel’s construction began in 2018 and was initially scheduled to be completed by July 2022, but has been delayed to May 2024. The Char Dham pilgrimage route aims to connect four important Hindu pilgrimage sites in North India and is one of the most ambitious projects of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. It involves building 889 kilometers of two-lane road at a cost of $1.5 billion.
The incident has highlighted concerns about the project, as there have been instances of subsidence along the route, leading to damage to hundreds of houses.
Reporting by Saurabh Sharma; writing by Kanjyik Ghosh and Shivam Patel; editing by Shri Navaratnam, Tomasz Janowski, and Mark Heinrich
