JOIN USWorkers feared buried under slush in 4 tunnels at Tapovan
A tunnel at the NTPC hydel project site has become the focal point of rescue efforts, but there are four other tunnels that act as water ingress points where more workers are feared buried under the sludge carried by the landslide-induced avalanche on Sunday.
The four tunnels, next to the barrage of the run-of-the-river project, were under construction and workers were present on Sunday morning when disaster ravaged the project site.
An official of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), who has been part of the rescue efforts, said the entry to the four tunnels were covered by sludge as high as 25 meters, making it a difficult area for even machines to venture.
“An earth-mover or excavator would sink in the sludge,” Aparna Kumar, Indo-Tibetan Border Police Deputy Inspector General told DH.
A video of the disaster, being circulated over social media, showed a group of workers stranded on the barrage when the muddy waters came roaring towards the project site, bringing along huge boulders from upstream.
The group of workers were seen moving together in a group before being swept away by a wall of water that came rushing towards the project site, leaving a trail of death and destruction.
“All the energies of the rescue efforts are focused on one tunnel that has 35-40 people, but no one is focussing on these four tunnels,” a distraught Surat Singh from Tehri Garhwal told DH. He claimed that several persons were buried under the sludge which entered the four tunnels which merge into a single tunnel where the current rescue efforts were underway.
More than 600 personnel from the Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) were engaged in the search-and-rescue operations underway since Sunday
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