Amidst Heavy Lifting of Debris, Rescuers Swing Between Hope and Despair
Significant progress made in tunnel excavation, but challenges remain amid fluctuating hope and disappointment.
Hyderabad: Rescuers continued their search for the still missing seven workers inside the SLBC tunnel in Nagarkurnool district on Friday and made significant progress in cutting and removing more sections of the tunnel boring machine, silt and rocks.
So far, rescue workers assisted by engineers and technicians, managed to cut and remove 750 tonnes of metal parts, mostly from the tunnel boring machine.
Another 1,250 tonnes of silt and rocks have been removed even as dewatering pumping out between 3,000 and 3,200 litres of water per minute is continuing round the clock, said Arvind Kumar, special chief secretary of disaster management.
The complexity of the operations and the constant swinging between hope and disappointment of the rescuers trying to find the missing workers came to the fore again on Friday when one of the two human remains detection dogs of the Kerala police, taken into the tunnel in a bid to pinpoint possible location of the missing workers, became excited and barked pointing to a particular spot.
“We immediately had the spot dug through but could not find anything, and realised that it was a smell carried by the seeping water that flowed through that spot which the dog picked up. The rescuers, and we are hopeful that we may be able to make some progress in our search as we continue to clear up the silt in between the layers of the tunnel boring machine which has become more accessible after cutting more portions of it,” Arvind Kumar said.
