Telangana Tunnel Collapse: Rescuers Reach Tunnel Boring Machine Spot, Says Official

As eight persons got trapped around 14 km inside the tunnel of the Srisailam Left Bank Canal project after part of its roof collapsed on Saturday, a rescue team made headway and reached the spot where a tunnel boring machine was working during the incident, Nagarkurnool District Collector B Santhosh said on Sunday.

However, silt poses a challenge to move further to reach the spot where the people are believed to have been trapped, he added.

Photo Credit: PTI

The collector, who is supervising the rescue operation, said four NDRF teams--one from Hyderabad and three from Vijayawada, comprising 138 members, 24 personnel of the army, personnel of SDRF, 23 members from SCCL with equipment besides members of the infra firm are engaged in the rescue operations.

The rescuers have reached the point where the tunnel boring machine is there. As there is silt after that point, the NDRF team is making plans to go forward.

Oxygen and power supply has been made available in the tunnel and dewatering and the de-silting operation is also underway.

"As of now, we don't have communication with them (those trapped). The rescuers will go inside and see and then we will be able to tell,” he said.

An NDRF official told a TV channel that one of the teams had last night went inside the tunnel. There is a lot of debris and the TBM is also damaged and its parts are scattered inside.

"There is water logging 2 km just before the 13.5 km point.It is a challenging task and due to this our heavy equipment is not able to reach the last point and hence dewatering has to be completed which will enable the equipment to reach ahead. Then only the removal of debris can start. Additional motors have been used to speed up the dewatering process," he said.

The team after reaching 13.5 km called those trapped, but did not get any reply from them, he said. After this point, there is still a 200-meter patch and it is only after reaching near them their condition would be known, he added.