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Chamoli tragedy: Rescue agencies change tactic, focus on drilling into tunnel

By, Dehradun
Feb 12, 2021 08:47 PM IST

Till Friday evening, three more bodies had been recovered, taking the confirmed death toll to 38.

After failing to get a breakthrough in clearing muck from the 1.7 kilometre-long tunnel at NTPC's hydel power project in Tapovan to reach the 35 workers trapped inside, the rescue agencies on Friday changed their tactic by focussing on drilling into the tunnel vertically 12.75 metres below the floor of the main tunnel.

Rescue workers drilling inside the tunnel on Friday.(HT Photo )

According to the officials of the 35 workers, about 30 workers are believed to be trapped in a small interconnected underground tunnel called slit flushing tunnel, 12.75 metres under the 1.7-kilometre tunnel, while the remaining are trapped in the big one at a distance of about 180 metres. The rescue agencies are drilling at a distance of about 72 metres in the big tunnel to reach out to the 30 workers.

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Gurdeep Singh, chairman and managing director, NTPC, who is at the spot to monitor the rescue operation, told media that, "The interconnected underground tunnel is about 12.75 metres deep under the 1.7-kilometre long one."

Divisional commissioner Garhwal, Ravinath Raman, who is monitoring the rescue operation at the NTPC site, said, "On Thursday, the rescue agencies were able to drill up to 6 metres deep but after that, they had to stop as water started coming out. On Friday, they resumed drilling and till evening had drilled till 11.50 metres deep."

"The drilling operation had to be stopped at 11.50 metres because of slush coming out. The slush is now being pumped out after which the drilling would resume which might take another 4-5 hours to complete," said Raman.

Also read: Dozens dead, hundreds missing - What we know about Uttarakhand floods so far

Earlier, the rescue workers who were clearing the muck from inside the tunnel failed to get any breakthrough due to heavy boulders and muck beyond 100 metres in the tunnel.

Till Friday evening, they recovered three more bodies taking the confirmed death toll to 38 so far with bodies of 166 others yet to be recovered out of a total of 204 missing people in the disaster.

Among the 38 bodies recovered, 11 were identified while 27 are yet to be identified.

Nilesh Anand Bharne, deputy inspector general (law & order), said, "Of the total bodies recovered, 30 were found in Chamoli district, six in Rudraprayag district and one each from Tehri Garhwal and Pauri Garhwal districts. Apart from this, 18 mutilated body parts were also found from different places."

"So far, the police have cremated 23 bodies and 10 body parts with complete rituals and respect. They have also collected DNA samples of all the bodies to ascertain their identity by matching them with that of their family members," said Bharne.

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