Indian rescuers began drilling vertically on Sunday from the top of a mountain under which 41 workers were trapped two weeks ago while working on a highway tunnel in the Himalayas, government officials said.
The men, who are construction workers from some of India’s poorest states, have been stuck in the 4.5-km tunnel being built in Uttarkashi in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand since it caved in early on Nov. 12. Authorities have said they are safe, with access to light, oxygen, food, water and medicine.
But rescuing them will take much longer than previously hoped as rescuers have switched to manual drilling, officials said on Saturday. Rescuers had hoped to finish the drilling late on Thursday but had to suspend the operation after the platform on which the machine was placed was damaged.
Work resumed Friday evening only to be suspended soon afterwards as the machine ran into a new obstacle, officials said, without elaborating.
Vertical drilling started on Sunday and it will take about 100 hours, the officials said.
Access to essentials and some entertainment
Initially, the rescue plan involved pushing a pipe wide enough to pull the trapped men out on wheeled stretchers.
The men have been sent cooked food, water and medicine via a lifeline pipe that was pushed through to ensure steady supplies of essential goods.
More than a dozen doctors, including psychiatrists, are at the site, talking to the men and monitoring their health. The fact that the tunnel is closed by the debris is keeping the men warm.
Featured VideoVideo emerges of construction workers who’ve been trapped in a tunnel since a collapse in India nine days ago.
The trapped men have been told to do light yoga exercises, walk around in the two kilometres of tunnel space they are confined to, and keep talking to each other.
Deepak Patil, one of the officers in charge of the rescue mission, told Reuters authorities had also sent in two mobile phones and memory cards with Hindi films and electronic games.
On Sunday, Priyanka Chaturvedi, an MP for Shiv Sena, a right wing opposition party, asked for an investigation into the accident and asked the government to ensure the safety of the men.
A member of a panel of experts investigating the disaster said on Friday the tunnel does not have an emergency exit and was built through a geological fault.