HYDERABAD: Irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy is set to return to the SLBC tunnel inlet site in Domalapenta of Nagarkurnool district on Tuesday morning. The minister was there on Saturday and Sunday, overseeing the putting together of the rescue effort to save the eight workers trapped in the tunnel, a section of which collapsed on Saturday morning.His visit comes in the wake of a consensus among experts from different teams of rescuers, experts and state government officials that until stability issues in the tunnel are established, all rescue operations should be temporarily suspended.Present at the site on Monday was the Army’s General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Telangana and Andhra Sub-Area, Major General Ajay Mishra.A team of ‘rat miners’ from Jharkhand, known for their ability to tunnel through tiny spaces, arrived at the tunnel site on Monday. They became famous after the Silkyara tunnel rescue mission in Uttarakhand in 2023 where they were the first to reach 17 trapped workers after a collapse in that tunnel and played a key role in the rescue there.Since conditions in the SLBC tunnel were not conducive for rescue efforts, the rat miners team was placed on standby.Earlier in the day, minister Komatireddy Venkat Reddy who went to the tunnel inlet site, had expressed confidence that despite the mounting challenges, the rescue attempts would continue. He also said calls were made to the mobile phone numbers of the trapped workers and at least one of the phones rang.“The worker’s wife had said that she spoke with him on Saturday morning and that gives us hope. But as we kept trying, that phone stopped ringing, possibly running out of battery. The locations of the phones we called were established to be in and around 2 km from the tunnel collapsed site,” Venkat Reddy said.“There are some 584 personnel in all the rescue teams put together including those from Singareni Collieries. So far, seven times teams of rescuers have gone into the tunnel. We also got sniffer dogs but since the conditions were not conducive for them to go in, their services have been kept on hold. Repairs have also been taken up to restore sections of the damaged conveyor belt,” he said.Venkat Reddy said that an idea that was considered, to drill an emergency duct from the surface over the collapsed tunnel site, has now been abandoned as impractical.He reviewed the conditions and possible courses of action with a team of senior IAS and IPS officers, led by special chief secretary, disaster relief, Arvind Kumar, who have been stationed on site to coordinate and oversee the rescue. The other members of the team are HYDRAA chief A.V. Ranganath, CMD of TGPDCL Musharaf Farouqi, and former Nagarkurnool district collector Sridhar. Also taking part in the meeting were senior officials from irrigation, police, and fire services departments, representatives of Jaiprakash Industries contracted to build the tunnel, and Glen Mynard from Robbins, USA, that owns and operates the tunnel boring machine.
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