Tunnel Tragedy: Search For Missing Miners Enters 23rd Day

Hyderabad: The operation to trace the remaining seven persons trapped under debris in the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel in Telangana's Nagakurnool district entered the 23rd day on Sunday.

Rescue workers continued clearing slush, metal, and other debris from the last 50-70 meters of the 14-kilometer tunnel. At the D1, one of the points where the Human Remains Detection Dog (HRDD) squad from Kerala and the ground probing radar (GPR) have detected some human remains, and soft material, debris to a height of nine meters have piled up.

Miners from Singareni Collieries Company Limited and Rathole miners from Uttarakhand were engaged in digging at the suspected sites – D1, D2 and P1. The officials hope to find the bodies of the missing persons once the debris is cleared at D1.

The agencies involved in the operation have divided the area from the loco-end point to the last 50 meters into three stretches for better output. Robotic technology is used for search operations towards the tail-end of the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM). According to officials, specialised machinery had been deployed in coordination with an autonomous hydraulically powered robot to expedite the rescue work. This includes a 30 HP capacity liquid ring vacuum pump and a vacuum tank-equipped machine. These machines will facilitate the rapid removal of debris and accelerate work inside the tunnel. Instead of manual digging, an autonomous hydraulically powered robot is being utilised, which, equipped with advanced technology, is conducting the excavation process inside the tunnel.