Rescue work enters final stretch at tunnel, hopes high

Ambulances were on standby and doctors summoned to the disaster site as a multi-agency effort to rescue 41 men trapped in the Silkyara tunnel appeared close to success on Wednesday evening.
At a press briefing around 4 pm, officials at Silkyara said another six-metre section of the rescue pipe had been inserted as an auger machine drilled through debris of the collapsed stretch of the tunnel.
Going by the figures given earlier in the day, this indicated that 45 metre of the escape passage had been created out of the estimated 57 metres stretch of debris beyond which the worker are trapped for more than 10 days.
In Delhi, a press release reporting the progress till 2 pm said the steel pipe had been inserted up to the 42-metre mark. It said 67 per cent of the auger drilling was completed.
Once the pipe, which is a little under a metre wide is inserted, workers can crawl out through it.
A team of 15 doctors, including chest specialist, has been deployed at the site in anticipation of the evacuation. Twelve ambulances were on standby at the spot, and the plan was to keep a fleet of 40 ready.
A helicopter was also expected to be earmarked for the operation.
A makeshift eight-bed hospital has been set up in the vicinity of the under-construction tunnel on the Char Dham route. At the Silkyara briefing, Bhaskar Khulbe, a former advisor with the Prime Minister’s Office, was upbeat, saying that another six-metre section of the rescue pipe had been inserted over the past hour.