Uttarakhand tunnel collapse: Manual drilling advances, breakthrough soon

As the 17th day of the Silkyara tunnel rescue efforts began, rescuers crossed the 50-metre mark and needed to dig through seven metres of rubble using rat-hole mining techniques to bring out the 41 trapped workers. Twelve rat-hole mining experts are involved in the horizontal excavation through the last 10 or 12-metre stretch of debris of the collapsed portion of the under-construction tunnel on Uttarakhand’s Char Dham route.

Rat-hole miners have been manually drilling since Monday night. The debris thus generated is taken out manually using ropes from the rescue pipe.