Telangana tunnel collapse: With solid action plan, hoping to complete rescue ops in two days, says minister

Nagarkurnool, Telangana: Telangana Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Wednesday said the whole rescue operation to extricate eight people who remain trapped in the SLBC tunnel after it partially collapsed on Saturday, will be completed in two days with increased pace of action as it has been decided to go into the silt in search of the trapped men.

Addressing a press conference, the minister said he along with his cabinet colleague Komatireddy Venkat Reddy and officials from Army, NDRF, SDRF and others held discussions and assessed the situation.

"The whole operation has been reviewed with all the officials, including from NDRF, Army, SDRF, District Collector, and superintendent of police...we have made a concrete plan of action today that we will go ahead into the silt (in the tunnel). Now we are hoping that we can complete the whole operation in two days. We have decided a plan of action and decided a timeframe, and now we will go forward," he said.

The minister said the rescue operation was slowed down on Tuesday keeping in view the safety of the lives of the rescuers.

Dewatering in the collapsed tunnel will go on and the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) that is struck inside will be cut into pieces by using gas cutters and removed. After this, the Army, Navy, Rat Miners and NDRF teams will make another serious effort to rescue the eight persons who are missing without compromising on the rescuers' safety, the minister explained.

He said the state government has roped in the best experts who have experience in building tunnels at border areas, retired army officials and people who participated in the rescue operations wherever tunnel accidents happened and sought their opinion.

"We have not completely given up our hopes. We are going forward with our work with an intention to save them and bring them out," he replied when asked if he still has hopes that the trapped individuals are alive.

Eight personnel working on the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel project were trapped after a portion of the tunnel collapsed on February 22.