Uttarkashi tunnel collapse: Action plan to rescue 41 trapped workers

Beneath the weight of the earth, forty-one workers are still ensnared in the cold shadows of the ambitious Char Dham Highway project in an embrace of darkness and silence.The first visuals of workers trapped inside the collapsed Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi surfaced on Tuesday morning, a day after rescuers pushed a six-inch-wide pipeline through the rubble – a breakthrough that would help them supply larger quantities of food to the labourers trapped inside for nine days.

Part of the Rs 12,000 crore infrastructure plan to improve connectivity between Char Dham sites, the tunnel collapsed at a distance of 160 metres from the entrance at Silkyara early in the morning on Diwali (November 12).India Today’s OSINT team extensively studied public records to lay out the complete details of the five action plans underway by different government authorities to save the lives of 41 workers trapped in the darkness of the tunnel for over 200 hours now.

A team of the National Highway Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) will recommence the drilling from the mouth of the tunnel from the Silkyara side after it hit a snag on Friday once it dug 22 metres through the debris.This was the first rescue (horizontal) pipe, work towards which has been rife with challenges. Workers were to crawl out of this 900m wide pipe but officials could only drill 22m when work was halted as the auger machine hit rocks and got broken or damaged. Simply put, an auger is a spiral-shaped tool that is used to drill holes into the ground and other surfaces or materials.