Drilling will soon restart after no progress since Thursday: Rescue operations at Silkyara Tunnel: NDMA

The Silkyara tunnel in Uttrakhand has seen no further progress in the effort to rescue 41 trapped workers since Thursday, according to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), which also guaranteed that auger machine digging will resume shortly.

Obstacles forced the drilling operation to halt on Thursday, but repairs are being made in order to soon resume the procedure using an auger machine.

Lt Gen (retd) Syed Ata Hasnain, an NDMA member, told the media at a briefing on rescue efforts that “by any means” the trapped workers would be freed since all available resources are being employed.

He said that since Thursday, there has been no progress in getting pipe through the rubble in the tunnel; around 15 meters of drilling remain to get to the workers who are stuck.

Giving specifics about the process, he said that the auger machine should be able to dig around 4-5 meters in an hour if there are no obstructions.

Hasnain also cautioned the media from speculating on when the rescue efforts would be finished since doing so may mislead people.

He went on, “It’s a challenging and difficult operation.”

The NDMA member said that Uttrakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and Union Minister VK Singh have communicated with the workers’ family and that all of the employees are safe.

A day after another setback derailed the rescue attempts, on Friday morning, work was scheduled to continue drilling through the debris to establish an escape path for the 41 workers trapped within the Silkyara tunnel.

On Thursday, the drilling machine’s platform seemed to have fractures, which caused the digging through the debris to be halted once again.

The dampener was installed a few hours after the work was restarted earlier in the day, after it was delayed for six hours to remove an iron girder that was obstructing the auger machine late on Wednesday night.

Hasnain said that several state administrations and federal agencies are actively participating in the rescue efforts.

Twelve days have passed when a section of the tunnel under construction on the Uttarakhand Char Dham path collapsed, obstructing the men’s escape.