Telangana govt working with Army, Navy, NDRF; hopeful of saving trapped persons by evening: Minister

Reddy said about 70 people were working in the tunnel when the collapse happened and most of them could escape and return by their internal train or locomotive there.

Nagarkurnool (Telangana): The Telangana government is working with the Indian Army, Navy, NDRF and all other tunnel experts in the country to try and save the eight persons who remained trapped for the past 30 hours inside a tunnel after a section of it collapsed in the SLBC project, Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy said on Sunday.

Reddy, who is camping at the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) project site and overseeing the rescue operations, hoped that the trapped persons would be saved by this evening.

"I'm monitoring on a minute-to-minute basis. The government of Telangana is working with the Indian Army, Indian Navy, NDRF, and all other tunnel experts in the country to try and save the situation here,” he told PTI videos.

He further said about 70 people were working in the tunnel when the collapse happened and most of them could escape and return by their internal train or locomotive there. "But eight people have been missing since yesterday. We are hoping and praying that they are safe, and we are hoping and praying that we can recover them, retrieve them, and save them by this evening," Reddy said.

Uttam Kumar Reddy further said the SLBC project was sanctioned 35 years ago and works commenced about 30 years ago. Of the 44 kms, work on about 9 kms remains to be carried out, he said. "We are trying to save the lives of the eight persons who went missing," he said.

He earlier said work on the "world's longest tunnel of 44 kms" began to draw water from the Srisailam project to irrigate four lakh acres in the Nalgonda district.