HYDERABAD, Feb 22:
Eight persons were trapped in a tunnel after a section of it collapsed in the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) project today and rescue operations were on in full swing to extricate them, the State Government said.
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Telangana Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy told reporters at the accident site in Nagarkurnool district, about 150 km from here, that the State Government is taking the help of experts, including those who rescued trapped workers in a similar incident in Uttarakhand last year, and also that of the Indian Army and NDRF.
Two of the trapped are engineers of an infra firm and two are operators, employed with a US company. Four others are labourers. They all belong to Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhad, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir
Fresh air was being pumped into the tunnel to ensure the safety of those trapped, sources said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy to inquire about the incident and assured all possible assistance from the Centre for the ongoing rescue operation.
Teams of NDRF and SDRF have reached the spot and a team of army personnel is on its way, a senior police official said.
After the construction work resumed recently, as many as 50 persons went inside the tunnel in the first shift along with the tunnel boring machine which is 200 meter long, on Saturday morning.
“As part of the work, they went up to the 13.5 km inside the tunnel when the roof collapsed suddenly. Eight members including two engineers, who were ahead of the machine got trapped while 42 others ran towards the outside gate of the tunnel and came out,” the official said.(PTI)
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