(ReliableNews.org) – India has undertaken massive infrastructure projects over the last year to add new roads and bridges in remote areas of the country. A tunnel project was underway in Silkyara, Uttarakhand, on November 12, when it collapsed, trapping dozens of workers. After three weeks of rescue attempts, the men are finally safe.
Officials in India tried all kinds of machinery to rescue the 41 trapped miners who were under almost 300 feet of Himalayan rock. An American-made auger drilling machine appeared to be working at first, but it failed. The machine made the entire mountain shake when it was about 72 feet into the drilling. Authorities stopped using the machine, fearing it would completely collapse the tunnel when the men were stuck. One expert said the rescue was one of the toughest they’d ever been a part of.
According to reports, rescuers tried to drill into the mountain horizontally but failed after the first machine broke. They brought a second machine in, and that one broke, too. Then they tried to get to the men by drilling vertically, but that also failed. Finally, a 12-man crew of “rat hole” miners came to the rescue. Rat hole mining is a process of mining by manually digging through a tunnel. It gets its name because the miners look like rats burrowing holes. The practice was banned in 2014.
The rat miners used shovels, hand-held drills, and their hands to dig through the rubble. The workers pushed a 31-inch diameter pipe through the debris and reached the trapped men. They were then pulled to safety one by one through the pipe until all 41 were out safely.
The Washington Post reported one of the rescue workers, Harpal Singh, said it was obvious that there were “mistakes made by the people who were working on the tunnel project.” He said the tunnel “should not have collapsed.”
Copyright 2023, ReliableNews.org
(ReliableNews.org) – India has undertaken massive infrastructure projects over the last year to add new roads and bridges in remote areas of the country. A tunnel project was underway in Silkyara, Uttarakhand, on November 12, when it collapsed, trapping dozens of workers. After three weeks of rescue attempts, the men are finally safe.
Officials in India tried all kinds of machinery to rescue the 41 trapped miners who were under almost 300 feet of Himalayan rock. An American-made auger drilling machine appeared to be working at first, but it failed. The machine made the entire mountain shake when it was about 72 feet into the drilling. Authorities stopped using the machine, fearing it would completely collapse the tunnel when the men were stuck. One expert said the rescue was one of the toughest they’d ever been a part of.
According to reports, rescuers tried to drill into the mountain horizontally but failed after the first machine broke. They brought a second machine in, and that one broke, too. Then they tried to get to the men by drilling vertically, but that also failed. Finally, a 12-man crew of “rat hole” miners came to the rescue. Rat hole mining is a process of mining by manually digging through a tunnel. It gets its name because the miners look like rats burrowing holes. The practice was banned in 2014.
The rat miners used shovels, hand-held drills, and their hands to dig through the rubble. The workers pushed a 31-inch diameter pipe through the debris and reached the trapped men. They were then pulled to safety one by one through the pipe until all 41 were out safely.
The Washington Post reported one of the rescue workers, Harpal Singh, said it was obvious that there were “mistakes made by the people who were working on the tunnel project.” He said the tunnel “should not have collapsed.”
Copyright 2023, ReliableNews.org
