Three teams of engineers and rescuers have assessed the strength of the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool in which eight men are trapped. Teams from the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Fire Services Department, and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) inspected the tunnel on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday, a top rescuer said.
“Three teams of the state and national disaster response contingents have assessed the tunnel to check if it is strong enough to let rescuers travel a distance,” Vaibhav Gaikwad, Superintendent of Police Nagarkurnool, told the Indian Express. A team of engineers and miners from the state’s Singareni Collieries, too, has reached the spot to assess the situation.
‘Men trapped deeper within tunnel’
On Saturday night, rescue teams reached the location of the collapse inside the SLBC tunnel and called out to the eight men trapped inside but received no response.
Gaikwad said, “There is a huge barrier of debris and mud at the spot and nothing is visible beyond that. The rescue personnel called out to the trapped persons but there was no response. They may be trapped much deeper inside. The dewatering and removal of debris started last night and it is continuing.”
Rescuers and experts at the site told The Indian Express earlier that the tunnel has water that must be drained out before attempting a rescue. An expert said Jaiprakash Associates, one of the construction companies whose workers are also trapped in the tunnel, is in the process of pumping out the water.
“The pumps are in place and the water will be pumped out. More, desilting too will have to be done as the tunnel is filled with debris, obstructing movement,” a senior expert told the Indian Express. The trapped men include two Indian engineers of American tunnelling firm The Robbins Company, while the rest are employees of JP Associates Ltd.
Meanwhile, Telangana Irrigation Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy said the last 200 metres of the tunnel that needs to be traversed to reach those trapped is filled with slush, making it impossible for the rescue team to access this section.”In the meantime, we are considering three options: drilling from above, drilling from the side, or dewatering and desilting the area to extract the survivors,” said Reddy.
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The men were trapped Saturday morning after a portion of the roof of the tunnel collapsed. In the evening, Telangana CM Revanth Reddy spoke to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In a post on X, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi expressed distress over the incident.
The trapped workers have been identified as Manoj Kumar and Sri Niwas from Uttar Pradesh; Sandeep Sahu, Jagta Xess, Santosh Sahu, and Anuj Sahu from Jharkhand; Sunny Singh from Jammu and Kashmir; and Gurpreet Singh from Punjab.
“There is a 15-metre working area between the rock which has collapsed and the tunnel boring machine. They are stuck there,” an official told The Indian Express.
Authorities confirmed that the ventilation system inside the tunnel remains functional, ensuring oxygen supply to the trapped workers. The Telangana government is reaching out to tunnel rescue experts, including the team which rescued workers from Uttarakhand’s Silkyara tunnel during last year’s collapse.
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Several rescue personnel from the NDRF, SDRF, Telangana Fire and Disaster Response, Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL), and Nagar Kurnool police ventured into the tunnel at around 10 pm to assess the situation and devise a plan to rescue the trapped men.
The team travelled on the tunnel locomotive for 11 km and around 2 km on the conveyor belt and was able to go up to 13 km inside and reached the spot where the collapse occurred Saturday morning, trapping eight workers. Debris and mud filled the tunnel up to eight metres high, spreading across nearly 200 metres and forming a thick barrier. Beyond this barrier, eight men are trapped.
Beyond 11 km, the tunnel is also filled with water, which is being pumped out before the debris removal can start.
