Uttarakhand tunnel collapse: Eight labourers from UP among 40 trapped under debris

Uttarakhand tunnel collapse: Eight labourers from UP among 40 trapped under debris

Eight labourers from Uttar Pradesh are among the 40 trapped for two days under the debris of a collapsed tunnel in Uttarakhand, officials here said on November 14.

A portion of an under-construction tunnel between Silkyara and Dandalgaon on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri National Highway caved in on November 12 following a landslide, the State Emergency Operation Centre in Dehradun said.

According to a list of the trapped workers issued by the emergency operation centre, 15 are from Jharkhand, eight from Uttar Pradesh, five from Odisha, four from Bihar, three from West Bengal, two each from Uttarakhand and Assam, and one from Himachal Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh Relief Commissioner Naveen Kumar said six labourers from Shravasti and one each from Lakhimpur and Mirzapur are among those trapped under the debris in the tunnel.

All of them are safe, he added.

The labourers have been identified as Ankit, Rammilan, Satyadev, Santosh, Jaiprakash and Ram Sunkdar from Shravasti, Manjit from Lakhimpur and Akhilesh Kumar from Mirzapur.

Subdivisional Magistarate (Bhinga) Piyush Jaiswal met family members of the trapped labourers from Shravasti and apprised them about the situation, Kumar said.

Officials also met the families of the labourers from Lakhimpur and Mirzapur, he added.

A fresh landslide on November 14 hampered efforts to insert steel pipes through the rubble of the collapsed tunnel to bring out the 40 labourers.

Drilling to insert the pipes to create a passage for the labourers began with the help of an 'auger machine', Uttarkashi District Magistrate Abhishek Ruhela told reporters earlier.

"If everything goes as planned, the trapped labourers will be evacuated by November 15," he had said after visiting the tunnel and taking an update on the operations from officials at the site. PTI ABN SZM