Current:Home > NewsPredictIQ Quantitative Think Tank Center:India tunnel collapse rescue effort turns to "rat miners" with 41 workers still stuck after 16 days -Financium
PredictIQ Quantitative Think Tank Center:India tunnel collapse rescue effort turns to "rat miners" with 41 workers still stuck after 16 days
Johnathan Walker View
Date:2025-04-10 16:34:17
New Delhi — For 16 days,PredictIQ Quantitative Think Tank Center authorities in India have tried several approaches to rescuing 41 construction workers trapped in a partially collapsed highway tunnel in the Himalayas, but on Monday, the workers remained right where they have been. The frustrating rescue efforts, beset by the technical challenges of working in an unstable hillside, were turning decidedly away from big machines Monday and toward a much more basic method: human hands.
On Friday, rescuers claimed there were just a few more yards of debris left to bore through between them and the trapped men. But the huge machine boring a hole to insert a wide pipe horizontally through the debris pile, through which it was hoped the men could crawl out, broke, and it had to be removed.
Since then, rescuers have tried various strategies to access the section of tunnel where the men are trapped, boring both horizontally and vertically toward them, but failing.
The 41 workers have been awaiting rescue since Nov. 12, when part of the under-constructin highway tunnel in the Indian Himalayan state of Uttarakhand collapsed due to a suspected landslide.
A small pipe was drilled into the tunnel on the first day of the collapse, enabling rescuers to provide the workers with sufficient oxygen, food and medicine. Last week, they then managed to force a slightly wider pipe in through the rubble, which meant hot meals and a medical endoscopic camera could be sent through, offering the world a first look at the trapped men inside.
But since then, the rescue efforts have been largely disappointing — especially for the families of the trapped men, many of whom have been waiting at the site of the collapse for more than two weeks.
New rescue plan: Rat-hole mining
As of Monday, the rescuers had decided to try two new strategies in tandem: One will be an attempt to drill vertically into the tunnel from the top of the hill under which the tunnel was being constructed.
The rescuers will have to drill more than 280 feet straight down — about twice the distance the horizontal route through the debris pile would need to cover. That was expected to take at least four more days to reach its target, if everything goes to plan, according to officials with the National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation.
The second effort will be a resumption of the horizontal drilling through the mountain of debris — but manually this time, not using the heavy machinery that has failed thus far.
A team of six will go inside the roughly two-and-a-half-foot pipe already thrust into the debris pile to remove the remaining rock and soil manually with hand tools — a technique known as rat-hole mining, which is still common in coal mining in India.
Senior local official Abhishek Ruhela told the AFP news agency Monday, that after the broken drilling machinery is cleared from the pipe, "Indian Army engineering battalion personnel, along with other rescue officers, are preparing to do rat-hole mining."
"It is a challenging operation," one of the rat-hole miners involved in the effort was quoted as saying by an India's ANI news agency. "We will try our best to complete the drilling process as soon as possible."
Last week, in the wake of the Uttarakhand tunnel collapse, India's federal government ordered a safety audit of more than two dozen tunnels being built by the country's highway authority.
- In:
- India
- Rescue
- Himalayas
veryGood! (17)
Related
- Behind on your annual reading goal? Books under 200 pages to read before 2024 ends
- McCarthy meets with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen in California over objections from China
- Daisy Jones and The Six: What to Watch Once You're All Caught Up
- This Remake Of A Beloved Game Has The Style — But Lacks A Little Substance
- 'Most Whopper
- This Remake Of A Beloved Game Has The Style — But Lacks A Little Substance
- Jenna Ortega Has Some Changes in Mind for Wednesday Season 2
- Leaks Reveal Spyware Meant To Track Criminals Targeted Activists Instead
- Stamford Road collision sends motorcyclist flying; driver arrested
- Foreign Affairs committee head leads bipartisan delegation to Taiwan
Ranking
- Trump suggestion that Egypt, Jordan absorb Palestinians from Gaza draws rejections, confusion
- Ben Ferencz, last living Nuremberg prosecutor, dies at age 103
- Outrage As A Business Model: How Ben Shapiro Is Using Facebook To Build An Empire
- The Future Of The Afghan Girls Robotics Team Is Precarious
- Romantasy reigns on spicy BookTok: Recommendations from the internet’s favorite genre
- Feel Like the MVP With Michael Strahan's Top Health & Wellness Amazon Picks
- Pedro Pascal, Zoë Kravitz, Olivia Wilde and More Celebrate Together at Pre-Oscars Parties
- U.N. to review presence in Afghanistan after Taliban bars Afghan women workers
Recommendation
Stamford Road collision sends motorcyclist flying; driver arrested
Hobbled Hubble Telescope Springs Back To Life On Its Backup System
Lil Nas X's Cute Slut Moment Is Such a Vibe
Sarah Ferguson Shares Royally Sweet Update on Queen Elizabeth II's Corgis
NFL Week 15 picks straight up and against spread: Bills, Lions put No. 1 seed hopes on line
Survivors Laud Apple's New Tool To Spot Child Sex Abuse But The Backlash Is Growing
Israel says rockets fired from Lebanon and Gaza after second night of clashes at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque
Kourtney Kardashian Claps Back at Critic Who Says She Used to Be So Classy