The positions of four of the eight men trapped under the collapsed Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel in Telangana have been traced using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Telangana Minister Jupally Krishna Rao told the media on Saturday, March 1.
He added that these four traced workers will be brought out by the evening of March 2. Indicating that the chances of the men being rescued alive are bleak, the Minister said, “I’ve been saying from day 1 that chances [of survival] are slim. But…why give up on that 1% of hope,” the Minister said.
He added that the remaining four workers appear to be stuck under the tunnel boring machine (TBM), he said. “Tracing [the other four men] could take an additional day,” the Minister said, adding the nearly 450-foot long TBM has been cut up to aid the rescue operation.
Addressing the media near the SLBC irrigation project site near Domalapenta in Nagarkurnool district, he said that personnel from various agencies involved in the rescue operation are also manually digging at the spot where the radar located four individuals.
Two men were injured and eight others trapped when a portion of the SLBC tunnel roof collapsed on February 22 at the tunnel’s 14th km point.
A total of 50 people were working inside the tunnel when the roof collapsed. The accident occurred at the 14th km point. While 42 workers came out of the tunnel, the remaining eight were stuck inside.
Project manager Manoj Kumar (Uttar Pradesh), machine engineer Srinivas (Uttar Pradesh), and machine operators Sunny Singh (J&K) and Gurpreet Singh (Punjab) are among those trapped.
The four workers from Jharkhand are Sandeep Sahu, Santosh Sahu, Anju Sahu and Jagta Khes.