Uttarkashi tunnel collapse: Workers protest after landslide hits rescue op

Efforts to rescue the 40 workers trapped inside a tunnel in Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi district continued on Wednesday. Meanwhile, workers staged a protest at the site of the accident where the relief and rescue operation was underway.

The workers demanded immediate evacuation of their fellow workers and raised slogans, "Hamare aadmi nikalo.." (Take out our men..)

As the rescue operation entered its fourth day on Wednesday, the auger drilling machine and its platform were dismantled. Rescue officials had spent hours preparing a platform for the auger drilling machine to insert steel pipes through the rubble, but a fresh landslide on Tuesday night forced them to dismantle the machine and start work on the platform again.

Drilling to insert the pipes to create a passage for the labourers began with the help of an 'auger machine', Uttarkashi District Magistrate Abhishek Ruhela told reporters earlier, news agency PTI reported.

"If everything goes as planned, the trapped labourers will be evacuated by Wednesday," he had said after visiting the tunnel and taking an update on the operations from officials at the site.

However, the rescue work was affected when the landslide caused fresh rubble to fall from above, causing a stampede-like situation that left two labourers injured.

At least 40 workers were trapped after a portion of an under construction tunnel between Silkyara and Dandalgaon on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri national highway collapsed on Sunday morning.

The total length of the tunnel is 4.5 km, with 2,340 metres constructed from Silkyara's end and 1,750 metres from Dandalgaon's side. A stretch of 441 metres between the two sides of the tunnel is yet to be constructed.