Hyderabad, Feb 24 (IANS) Two teams of construction major Larsen & Toubro with advanced equipment on Monday joined the operation to rescue eight trapped workers from an under-construction tunnel, a portion of which collapsed on February 22 in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district. L&T, which has the experience of the rescue operation in Uttarakhand, has brought endoscopic and robotic cameras Nagarkurnool district Collector Badavath Santosh said the rescue teams had to cover a distance of another 40 meters to reach the point where the roof had collapsed. This stretch of the tunnel is filled with muck, making further advance of the rescue operations difficult.

The L&T teams will deploy endoscopic and robotic cameras to sift through the muck and communicate with survivors, if any, at the fag end of the tunnel. The teams used the same equipment for rescue operations after the Silkyara Bend-Barkot tunnel collapsed in Uttarakhand, where 41 workers trapped inside were rescued after 17 days in 2023. Multiple teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the Army and other agencies continued rescue operation on Monday. More than 48 hours after a portion of the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel collapsed, the fate of eight men, including two engineers and two machine operators, was not known.

Teams of the Indian Air Force and Navy are also reaching Srisailam in three helicopters from Visakhapatnam to join the rescue operation. NDRF personnel managed to reach the tunnel boring machine at the 14th-km point but heaps of debris hampered the search operation. The tunnel remained flooded with water for about two kilometres, making the rescue task more challenging for more than 300 rescue workers. Rescue teams deployed heavy motors for dewatering. The operation encountered more problems as the loco train to move into the tunnel broke down at the 11th kilometre. Efforts were on to fix the problem.

NDRF, Army, Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) and Hyderabad Disaster Response and Asset Protection Agency (HYDRAA) were making intensive efforts to dewater and desilt the tunnel. Ministers Uttam Kumar Reddy and Jupally Krishna Rao, who were supervising the rescue operation, went into the tunnel by a loco train on Sunday. Jupally Krishna Rao told media persons after coming out of the tunnel that the chances of finding the trapped persons alive were remote. Irrigation Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy said all efforts were being made to pull out the trapped men safely. He said the possibility of reaching the spot by digging the tunnel from the top was being explored.

Two workers were injured and eight others were trapped when a portion of the tunnel was being dug as part of SLBC collapsed near Domalapenta. A total of 50 persons were working on the left-side tunnel when the roof collapsed for three meters. The accident occurred at the 14th km point. While 42 workers came out of the tunnel, the remaining eight were trapped. Those trapped include two engineers and two machine operators. The trapped men are from Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir. Project manager Manoj Kumar (Uttar Pradesh), Machine engineer Srinivas (Uttar Pradesh) and machine operators Sunny Singh (J&K) and Gurpreet Singh (Punjab) are among those trapped. The four workers from Jharkhand are Sandeep Sahu, Santosh Sahu, Anju Sahu and Jagta Khes.

/IANS