Rescuers break through Silkyara tunnel rubble, end of ordeal for 41 trapped workers
Uttarkashi (PTI): Rescue workers on Tuesday drilled through the 60-metre stretch of rubble of the collapsed Silkyara tunnel in which 41 workers are trapped for the last 16 days, officials said.
State government's information department chief Bansi Dhar Tiwari told reporters a little after 1.30 pm that the drilling was over.
Less than an hour later, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said the process of laying the escape pipe into the drilled passage was complete. "Soon all brother workers will be brought out," he posted on social media.
Earlier, NHIDCL managing director Mahmood Ahmed did not immediately confirm that the drilling work was over. He told reporters that the last section of the pipe was being pushed through.
National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel were expected to enter the steel chute pushed into the drilled passage over the past several days and then bring out the workers one-by-one.
Going by the practised drill, each worker will lie down on a wheeled stretcher that would be pulled by rescue workers outside using ropes. This was expected to take about two or three hours.
Anticipation had been building up at the disaster site on the Char Dham route hours before the news broke outside.
Ambulances were lining up at the mouth of the tunnel to rush the rescued workers as they are brought of the steel chute one by one to a community health centre.
A stretch of mud road was re-laid to make passage of ambulances easier. Stretchers were being taken inside the mouth of the tunnel.
As the information about the "breakthrough" emerged, some workers outside chanted "Jai Shri Ram".
Earlier, L&T team leader Chris Cooper predicted an early end to the workers' ordeal. "It is likely that they will be out before 5 pm," he told reporters. He said vertical drilling, the simultaneous drilling operation to reach the workers from above the tunnel, had now been called off.
Officials decided to switch to manual boring to break through the last 10 metres of the rubble after the heavy-duty auger drilling machine got stuck in the rubble on Friday.
Twelve rat-hole mining experts were called in to finish the last stretch of drilling using hand-held tools in a confined space.
Waiting at the tunnel site to see his 22-year-old son Manjit, Chaudhry said officials had told the families camping in Silkyara that arrangements will be made for them wherever the workers are taken after evacuation.
"Even, nature looks cheerful today," Jaimal Singh said as he waited for his brother Gabbar Singh's evacuation.
"We have been asked to keep our belongings rolled up and wait for further instructions," he said.
A special ward with 41 oxygen-supported beds was readied days earlier at the community health centre in Chinyalisaur, about 30 km from Silkyara, for the rescued workers.
Doctors were standing by and arrangements made to fly the workers to more advanced hospitals, if needed.
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Woman duped of Rs 25 lakh in fake Canada visa scam; 1 held
Shimla (PTI): A woman has been arrested from Punjab for allegedly duping another woman of Rs 25 lakhs by promising her to arrange a visa for Canada, police said on Monday.
The accused has been identified as Manju Kumari, a resident of Punjab.
Senior Superintendent of Police SSP Shimla Gaurav Singh said that Manju had contacted the woman several months ago and had promised her to arrange a visa for Canada.
"After this, she asked for money for the same from the victim, which she transferred to her on multiple occasions. However, as time went by, Manju started to make various excuses and ignored her calls," the SSP said.
Upon suspecting being defrauded, the victim's brother registered a complaint, and a case was registered under sections 318 (4) (cheating), 61(2) (criminal conspiracy) and 352 (2) (intentional insults designed to provoke a breach of peace) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the SSP said.
"Police teams were sent to Haryana and Punjab, but she kept evading arrest as she kept changing her locations as well as her mobile numbers. However, the police teams successfully arrested her on Sunday from a flat located in Kharar in Punjab," he said.
Further investigation into the matter is underway, and the defrauded money is also being recovered, he added.
