At least 40 development staff had been trapped on Sunday after the highway tunnel they had been constructing collapsed in northern India, with rescuers scrambling to achieve them beneath piles of particles.
The collapse occurred early Sunday morning within the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand when a body of workers had been transferring out and alternative staff had been moving into.
“About 200 metres of the tunnel have collapsed,” Durgesh Rathodi, a state catastrophe response official, instructed AFP from the location.
“About 40 to 41 workers are trapped inside. Oxygen is being supplied through the debris, but more rubble is coming down as rescuers try to remove the obstruction.”
The 4.5-kilometre tunnel is being constructed between Silkyara and Dandalgaon to attach two of the holiest Hindu shrines of Uttarkashi and Yamnotri.
Photographs launched by the federal government rescue groups confirmed large piles of concrete blocking the large tunnel, with twisted metallic bars on its damaged roof poking down in entrance of the rubble.
“Pray to god that those workers trapped inside the tunnel are brought out safely,” Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami wrote on social media platform X.
A neighborhood police officer instructed the Press Trust of India news company they had been “very optimistic” the lads could be rescued safely, however added it was “difficult to say how long it will take”.
The tunnel is a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s favorite Char Dham Road Project meant to enhance connectivity for a number of the hottest Hindu shrines within the nation, in addition to areas bordering China.
