- Workers may be rescued in few hours or by tomorrow: NDMA on Silkyara tunnel collapse
- NDRF plan: Trapped workers will be pulled out on wheeled stretchers
- Uttarkashi tunnel rescuers will take 12 to 14 hours more to complete drilling and reach workers: Bhaskar Khulbe, former advisor to PMO: reports PTI
- After that, it will take three more hours to take out the workers one by one. That will be done with the help of NDRF: Khulbe
- Experts from Delhi and Roorkee at Silkyara tunnel site: reports NDTV
- Uttarakhand CM reaches tunnel site: reports NDTV
- Uttarkashi tunnel rescuers cut through iron mesh that blocked drilling last night: Bhaskar Khulbe, former advisor to PMO: reports PTI
Rescue operations to evacuate 41 workers trapped in Uttarakhand's Silkyara tunnel entered the final stretch early Thursday after a late night hitch when the machine drilling the escape passage through the rubble hit a hard obstacle.
The drilling of 800 mm diameter steel pipes was halted for some hours overnight after an iron mesh came in the way of the auger machine, officials said, reports PTI.
Around 4.30 pm on Wednesday, only 12 metres of debris separated rescuers from the labourers trapped inside the collapsed Uttarkashi tunnel since November 12.
The last pipe to prepare the escape passage for the trapped workers was being pushed in through the rubble, an electrician working at the site said on Thursday morning.
All arrangements have been made to provide immediate medical care to the 41 trapped workers after they are evacuated, officials said.
A 41-bed separate ward has been readied at the Community Health Centre in Chinyalisaur for Silkyara tunnel evacuees and 41 ambulances wait outside the tunnel to rush them there as soon as they crawl out.
Till 6 pm on Wednesday, up to 44 metres of the escape pipe had been inserted into the debris, an official update said in Delhi.
Earlier, officials said the American-made auger machine had to drill through a 57-metre stretch of debris to reach the 41 workers, who were trapped when a portion of the under-construction tunnel collapsed 11 days ago.
The drilling from the Silkyara end was put on hold on Friday afternoon when the auger machine encountered a hard obstacle around the 22-metre mark, creating vibrations in the tunnel that caused safety concerns.
The drilling resumed around midnight Tuesday.
As the machine drills through, six-metre sections of steel pipes, just under a metre wide, are pushed into the escape passage. Once the pipeway reaches the other end, the trapped workers are expected to crawl out.
