Telangana: A tragedy in tunnel

50 days and counting...

When Anuj Sahu entered the SLBC tunnel in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district early on February 22, he was just about a fortnight away from a much-awaited vacation. He had already reserved a seat on a train that would have taken him to his home in faraway Jharkhand on March 9. But the tunnel collapsed, and Anuj, 28, was trapped under a huge pile of sludge, concrete and metal. So were seven other workers, most of whom were engaged by the Jaiprakash Associates Limited (JAL), a private company based in Uttar Pradesh, to build the longest irrigation tunnel in the world.

The 40-kilometre SLBC tunnel, designed to supply irrigation and drinking water to Nalgonda and Nagarkurnool, turned into a labyrinth of rubble and twisted metals when approximately 25,000 tonnes of rock and silt collapsed at a point nearly 13.9 kilometres inside it. With water pouring in at a speed of 3500 litres per minute, the catastrophe shattered and buried a 1,500-tonne Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) of the US-based Robbins Company. The body of its operator, Gurpreet Singh, was recovered on March 9, followed by that of Manoj Kumar, the JAL’s project engineer, who hailed from Unnao in Uttar Pradesh, on March 26. The fate of six other workers remains unknown.

The construction of the SLBC tunnel began in 2005-06. A 32-kilometre stretch of the tunnel was finished by the time Telangana was created in 2014. However, the previous BRS government ignored the SLBC tunnel project for 10 years, and the work resumed after the Congress came to power. The project was envisaged to provide irrigation facilities in drought-prone areas of Nalgonda and Nagarkurnool districts, apart from supplying drinking water to fluoride-affected villages.

The rescue operation, which was launched after the disaster struck the SLBC tunnel, is still on. But, with 50 days already gone, hope is diminishing, be it for the families of Anuj, Jagath Sahu, Santosh Sahu and Sandip Sahu in Jharkhand, or of Sri Niwas in Uttar Pradesh, or of Sunny Singh in Jammu and Kashmir

“It's one of the most challenging tasks we've faced,” Lotheti Sivasankar, a senior IAS officer and the nodal officer for the rescue operation, told DH. “The teams are confronting a huge concrete mound of approximately 308 metres inside the tunnel where the mishap occurred. This mound has solidified into rock embedded with metal and steel pieces from the shattered TBM.”

The country’s longest-running rescue effort has already seen the mobilisation of extraordinary resources. The excavators and other machinery are running continuously while approximately 700 personnel work around the clock in three shifts. Specially trained cadaver dogs, Murphy and Maya, of Kerala Police, were flown in. They identified two potential locations, marked as 'D1' and 'D2', where workers might be trapped.

What makes the rescue operation particularly daunting is the tunnel's single entry and exit point. Irrigation Minister Capt. N. Uttam Kumar Reddy described it as “the most complicated and difficult rescue operation in the world, or at least in India”. The minister said that rescuers themselves face danger from continuous silt and water flow.

With the collapsed area nearly 400 meters below the surface, vertical excavation was ruled out. The rescue personnel have to navigate 14 kilometres through knee-deep water into the tunnel for almost an hour to reach the disaster site. A 200-meter stretch of the tunnel is completely blocked by debris. The heavy-duty motors run around the clock to dewater the tunnel.

“Work stopped long ago at the collapse site due to water leakage and seepage,” a survivor told DH. “They were applying chemicals. We believed the leak was under control, but we weren't prepared for such a major disaster.”

M Shyamprasad Reddy, a retired executive engineer who previously worked on the SLBC tunnel, said that the seepage might not have been handled properly. “The seepage was detected in 2019. Due to a lack of timely and proper action, it developed cavities and loosened the soil, causing huge, heavy boulders to fall on the workers,” Reddy, also president of the Telangana Retired Engineers Association, said. He urged the state government to appoint a committee with international experts to determine the cause and path forward.

For families of the trapped workers, the wait has become an agonizing limbo between hope and grief. Jeetu Sahu, father of missing worker Sandeep Sahu, traveled to Domalapenta after learning of the disaster. "I'm a farm labourer," he said. "My son left home last September. He studied until intermediate and was seeking steady work unavailable in our village. This was his first stable job," Jeetu told DH.

Eleven national and state agencies have joined forces in this unprecedented rescue effort, including the Indian Army, Navy, Marcos Commandos, National Disaster Response Force, and technical experts from multiple organizations. Marine Commandos from the Indian Navy were brought in to assess options for navigating the final 40 metres where workers are believed to be trapped.

The scale of the challenge remains staggering as rescuers must remove approximately 10,000 cubic meters of mud sludge piled 10 feet high. The damaged TBM blocks their path, and the tunnel's narrow confines make it impossible for trucks to turn around inside. Each truck can carry only about 5 cubic meters of debris.

 Despite these challenges, Sivasankar remains cautiously optimistic, hoping to clear the muck mound within the next 10-15 days and complete the operation.