India and its plan B to rescue 41 workers trapped in a tunnel after 15 days

The authorities of the India They reported this Sunday of the beginning of a second plan to rescue 41 workers trapped in a tunnel under construction for 15 days in the north of the country, after numerous setbacks with operations, which could take days or weeks.

The forces working on the rescue began a new drilling today, three days after the plan to open a horizontal cavity towards the workers trapped alive since last November 12 was stopped due to the equipment breakdown, he said in a statement. to the press Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retired), member of the National Disaster Management Authority.

“Vertical drilling began today around 12 noon and 86 meters of vertical excavation is required to reach the trapped workers,” he explained.

According to Hasnain, “15 meters of drilling have already been carried out.”

Last Friday morning, the blades of the auger machine trying to make room for an escape pipe to where the workers are trapped were damaged after being hit by obstacles.

For now, the experts need to keep the drilling that has been done so far stable and remove the broken part of the auger machine to restart the drilling. excavation.

This is the fourth time that drilling equipment has broken down in the operation, so experts need a new machine to remove the remains of the damaged drill that is trapped in the tunnel.

The international tunnel expert, Arnold Dix, who is part of the operations and design of the rescue plans, explained that it is no longer possible to continue the horizontal drilling mechanically so they will continue manually once the parts are removed. stuck.

This means that rescue operations will carry out both plans simultaneously.

“The best plan so far is plan 1 (horizontal drilling) in which the internal drilling will be done manually (…) The second best technique is still vertical drilling,” Hasnain assured for his part.

Dix acknowledged yesterday that it is not possible to establish when the rescue will be completed but assured that “the 41 men will return home for Christmas”, recognizing that new plans could take days or weeks.

The workers were trapped in the early hours of November 12 when a section of a tunnel under construction collapsed in the town of Silkyarain the northern state of Uttarakhand, causing a blanket of debris about 60 meters thick.

The workers have received food, water and medicine, as well as oxygen, through a narrow pipeline that was already present before the accident.

In addition to the damage to the tunnel boring machine and the bending of one of the pipes that delayed the operation last Thursday, there was also the breakdown of another drilling rig last week, which had to be replaced by the current one, with greater power, and minor landslides in the area where rescuers work.