a team of six specialists have reached the site to undertake the manual drilling work. They will go inside the 800 mm pipe of the tunnel to remove the debris manually. The team includes engineers from the Indian Army's Madras Engineering Group as well as civilians.
As the Uttarkashi tunnel rescue operation enters day 16 on Monday, prayers are granted across the nation for the safe rescue of the 41 trapped soldiers.
The vertical drilling from the top of the hill makes swift progress as 31 metres of drilling work has been completed so far out of the 86 metres needed to reach the 41 trapped workers in the Silkyara tunnel, as per officials.
National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) Managing Director Mahmood Ahmad on Sunday informed that a total of 19.2 meters of vertical drilling has been completed at Uttarkashi's tunnel where 41 workers remained trapped.
National Disaster Management Authority Member, Lt General (Rtd) Syed Ata Hasnain on Sunday said that 86 meters of vertical drilling is required to reach the crust of the Uttarkashi's tunnel where 41 workers remained trapped adding that 17 meters of the drilling has already taken place.
The Indian Army has been called in at Uttarkashi's Silkyara tunnel for manual drilling at the site where 41 workers have remained trapped for the past 15 days.
The vertical drilling to rescue the trapped workers in the Silkyara tunnel, which was halted earlier today, has been resumed and the rescuers have managed to make progress over a distance of 17 metres from the hill above the tunnel.
Vertical drilling, one of the several chalked-out options to bring out 41 workers who have been trapped inside the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi since November 12, finally started on Sunday afternoon.
International tunnelling expert Arnold Dix said that there was no clue of a collapse in the area where the incident happened, in which 41 workers have been trapped for two weeks, while urging to investigate the matter.
The Indian Air Force on Sunday flew in 'critical DRDO equipment' in an effort to accelerate the rescue of 41 workers, who are trapped inside the collapsed portion of the under-construction Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi for over two weeks now, the IAF informed through an official release.<
A day after the ongoing efforts to rescue 41 trapped workers from the collapsed portion of the under-construction Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi hit fresh hurdles, micro-tunnelling expert Chris Cooper on Sunday said the rescuers were removing smaller as well as bigger pieces of debris from
National Disaster Management Authority Member, Lt General Syed Ata Hasnain (retired) on Saturday said that there has been no movement in the last 24 hours in the drilling work to rescue the 41 workers trapped in the Uttarkashi tunnel for 13 days.