Telangana SLBC tunnel collapse: More than a month with no signs of seven trapped workers

Hyderabad: It has been more than a month since the under-construction SLBC tunnel in Telangana's Nagarkurnool partially collapsed, trapping eight workers who were engaged in excavation work at the time of the incident.

So far, rescue teams comprising personnel from 11 different agencies have only recovered the body of one trapped person, while the whereabouts of the other seven remain unknown. Advanced resources have been deployed, including robot monitored excavators, specially flown-in cadaver dogs from Kerala, and cutting-edge technology for the rescue operations. Despite these efforts, the teams are yet to achieve any breakthrough.

The government has decided to continue relief efforts and has appointed senior IAS officer Shivashankar Lotheti as the nodal officer to oversee rescue operations. The concrete debris and iron wreckage of the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) continue to pose a major challenge to the rescue efforts, especially in the final 50 meters where these missing persons are suspected to be trapped.

The incident occurred on February 22 morning when eight workers, along with several others who entered the tunnel for excavation work, became trapped after the roof partially collapsed. The Telangana government has been constructing this 40 km long SLBC tunnel to supply irrigation and drinking water to the erstwhile combined districts of Nalgonda and Mahabubnagar.

Two highly trained cadaver dogs, Murphy and Maya, from the Kerala Police K-9 squad have been specially flown in to aid the rescue efforts. These Belgian Malinois, known for their exceptional search abilities, previously assisted during the Wayanad landslide disaster and are now working closely with rescue teams to locate any signs of the trapped workers in the SLBC tunnel.

With the help of these dogs, rescue teams have identified two spots where they believe the workers might be trapped. These spots have been marked as 'D1' and 'D2'. Now, in a focused approach, digging is proceeding at these two designated places. The conveyor belt that was repaired and became operational a few days ago has been helping in transporting the debris and other remains.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Monday held a review of rescue operations in the SLBC Tunnel. He ordered officials to continue the rescue operations and asked Chief Secretary Santhi Kumari to appoint senior IAS officer ShivaSankar Lotheti to monitor rescue operations closely and issue orders to this effect immediately. Officials briefed the Chief Minister about the progress in the rescue operations to date. To ensure the operations are completed quickly, Revanth Reddy asked the authorities to seek required permissions and assistance from the union government immediately.

On March 9, rescue teams retrieved a highly decomposed body. The body recovered from the SLBC tunnel has been identified as Gurpreet Singh, son of Virsa Singh, a resident of Punjab. He worked as an operator for Robbins India Company that manufactures and operates TBMs.

The trapped workers include two engineers, identified as Manoj Kumar and Sri Niwas from Uttar Pradesh, Sunny Singh from Jammu & Kashmir, Gurpreet Singh of Punjab, and Sandeep Sahu, Jagat Sahu, Santosh Sahu, and Anuj Sahu from Jharkhand.