Silkyara tunnel in the Uttarkashi district of India’s Uttarakhand state.
After numerous setbacks, Indian military engineers were getting ready to excavate by hand on Monday in an attempt to rescue 41 workers who had been stuck in a collapsed road tunnel for 16 days.
Underneath the snow-capped peaks of Uttarakhand in the Himalayan state, soldiers intend to use a method known as “rat-hole mining,” excavating by hand to remove the remaining nine metres (29 feet) of rocks and debris.
A massive earth-boring auger machine broke last week when engineers trying to drive a metal pipe horizontally through 57 metres (187 feet) of rock and concrete ran into metal girders and underground construction vehicles.
“The broken parts of the auger (drilling) machine stuck inside the tunnel have been removed,” senior local civil servant Abhishek Ruhela told AFP on Monday, after a specialised superheated plasma cutter was brought in to clear the metal.
“Preparations are being made to start manual drilling work,” he added. “Indian Army engineering battalion personnel, along with other rescue officers, are preparing to do rat-hole mining”.
In the extreme cold, engineers will have to clear the path with hand drills. This is a difficult task because the pipe is so narrow that a man could barely crawl through it.
Chris Cooper, a tunnel expert who is assisting the rescue teams, expressed optimism that the soldiers will be able to excavate.
He told reporters, “It depends on how the ground behaves,” adding that they might still need to cut through the sturdy girders that were intended to support the fallen roof. “We are sure we can get through it.”
A different attempt at vertical drilling has descended more than 25% of the 89 metres to the men, a hazardous path in an area where there has already been a collapse.
A specially-built track was used to transport a drilling machine up to the hill covered in trees above the tunnel.
Teams had reached 19 metres (63 feet) by late Sunday, according to Mahmood Ahmed, a senior official in the national roads ministry. “Vertical drilling is going on at a fast pace.”
He said that work is still being done at “full speed but with caution.”
From the far side of the road tunnel, a much longer third route estimated to be around 480 metres, digging, blasting, and drilling have also started.
Since November 12, the 41 construction workers have been confined within the Silkyara road tunnel.
The work has been excruciatingly slow, made more difficult by falling debris and frequent drilling machine malfunctions.
A government statement cautioning of the “challenging Himalayan terrain” crushed hopes that the team was close to making progress on Wednesday.
It has been a nightmare for the worried families of the men who are stuck, with no sign of relief in sight.
However, Pushkar Singh Dhami, the chief minister of Uttarakhand, promised on Monday that all of the men would be saved.
He said on X, formerly Twitter, “Do not worry, all the labourers will be taken out safely.”
Tuesday marked the first time the workers were spotted alive, as they looked through the endoscopic camera that rescuers had sent down a tiny pipe that supplies food, water, power, and air.