Using drones and remote-sensing equipment, rescue teams intensified efforts Wednesday to reach the 25-35 men trapped in a sludge-choked tunnel as over 170 people remained missing after the Uttarakhand disaster three days ago. Two of the men earlier counted among the 174 missing returned home safely after being stranded since the flash flood in Chamoli district. Two more bodies were recovered during the day, raising the confirmed death toll to 34.
The multi-agency rescue operation at the NTPC hydel project site has been going on uninterrupted since Sunday, when the Alaknanda river system was hit by the flood triggered possibly by a glacier break or an avalanche in the upper reaches of the Himalayas.
Eight of the 32 bodies earlier recovered from different places in the disaster-hit areas of Chamoli district had been identified, the State Emergency Control Centre in Dehradun said. The missing people include those working at NTPC’s 480 MW Tapovan-Vishnugad project and the 13.2 MW Rishiganga Hydel Project and villagers whose homes were washed away as a wall of water came hurtling down mountainsides.
A focal point of the rescue work has been efforts to penetrate through tonnes of silt, sludge and debris to get to the about 30 people, who were at work inside the 1,500-metre tunnel at Tapovan when the waters came rushing in.
Indo-Tibetan Border Police chief S S Deswal said the rescue operation to locate the workers trapped in the tunnel will continue till it reaches its “logical conclusion.”
“We are very hopeful that we will be able to rescue them. The workers are stated to be located at their work station that is about 180 metres from the mouth of the Tapovan tunnel,” he told PTI.
Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Nilesh Anand Bharne, Uttarakhand Police chief spokesperson, said drilling through the debris has become more difficult with the silt inside the tunnel drying up and getting harder.