As operations to rescue the 41 trapped workers at the Silkyara Tunnel collapse site entered day 16, there was some positive news with Micro tunnelling expert Chris Cooper saying that all the debris of the auger machine has been removed and manual drilling to reach the trapped labourers will start in a few hours.
“All the debris (of the Auger machine) removed. (Manual drilling) will probably start after 3 hours,” Chris Cooper said today.
Earlier today, the auger machine being used for horizontal drilling of the tunnel that got stuck inside the pipe was cut and removed using a plasma cutter. “We have 9 meters of hand tunnelling to do. It really depends on how the ground behaves. Could be quickly, could be a bit longer. If we hit some lattice girder. Then we’ve got to cut out the lattice girder, but we’re confident we can get through. The Army is just supervising (the operation). 30 metres of (vertical drilling) has been done”, he added.
Vouching for the manual method, former Army Engineer-in-Chief, Lieutenant General Harpal Singh (Retd), earlier today, said that there is no other way left except the manual method to reach the trapped workers. Singh said that he reached the site to provide technical inputs and further aid the ongoing rescue operations.