Rescuers send more food to trapped workers in Indian tunnel

SILKYARA, India: Rescuers on Monday (Nov 20) pushed through a new pipeline to deliver cooked food to 41 workers trapped for more than a week in a collapsed tunnel in the Indian Himalayas and said preparations were underway to start vertical drilling to pull them out.

The men have been stuck in the highway tunnel in Uttarakhand state since it caved in early on?Nov 12 and are safe, authorities said, with access to light, oxygen, dry food, water and medicines already being sent by a smaller pipe.

"Our priority is to save 41 lives who are trapped inside the tunnel," federal Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari told reporters on Sunday.

Officials are also considering setting up an optical fibre connection through this pipeline, Gadkari added, which can be used to insert a camera or phone connection into the tunnel to help workers speak to their families.

The men were already receiving nuts, puffed rice, chickpeas and other dry food items via a pipe. The district chief medical officer RCS Panwar said three of them have complained of dysentery.

Rescuers are exploring five new plans to pull out the workers after a machine drilling horizontally into the debris, to create space for the men to come out, developed a snag and a sudden "cracking sound" during efforts to restart it caused panic.

The new plans include drilling vertically from the top of the mountain, which rescuers hope can start by Tuesday as they await the arrival of machinery, said Jasvant Kapoor, a general manager at state-run company SJVN, which is involved in the rescue efforts.

Authorities have not said what caused the 4.5km tunnel to cave in, but the region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods.

Fifty to 60 workers were on the overnight shift at the time of the collapse, and those near the exit got out of the tunnel on the national highway that is part of the Char Dham Hindu pilgrimage route.