HYDERABAD: Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy said on Sunday that rescuers might take another two to three days before making significant progress in their attempts to find the eight missing workers inside the Srisailam left bank canal (SLBC) tunnel, a portion of which collapsed on February 22.Officials were not certain about the missing workers but rescue personnel were facing serious challenges with continuous seepage of water and difficulties in removing the accumulated silt, he told a press conference at the tunnel’s inlet site in Domalapenta of Nagarkurnool district. He also suggested the use of robots for the rescue work.Before speaking with the media, the Chief Minister attended a detailed briefing by rescue officials on the work done so far, the challenges being faced, and the plans on moving ahead with the operation. He declared that the state government was aware of the distress in the families of the eight workers and would stand with them.Revanth Reddy said the rescue work was expected to speed up after repairs to the conveyor belt system in the tunnel are completed, likely on Monday. Once this is done, the process of removing the silt will be speeded up.Only preliminary data was available on the possible location of the missing persons, and some of the machinery, Revanth Reddy said. It may take two or three days before all these problems are resolved and rescuers make more progress.The Chief Minister reiterated that the government was committed to completing the SLBC tunnel project, and asked the contractor to operate the second tunnel boring machine, which is at the outlet tunnel side in Nalgonda district, and complete the rest of the work.“One of the contributing factors for the accident here is likely the deliberate neglect of the project by the previous government which refused to clear the bills of the contractor. When the contractor could not pay electricity bills, power supply was shut down. Our government restored the power supply, cleared the bills, got spare parts and restarted the work. But the forced break resulted in a lot of water getting accumulated at the spot where the collapse occurred,” he said.The Chief Minister said all the rescue workers, be they from the Army, Navy, NDRF, Border Roads Organisation, Singareni Collieries, and the ‘rat’ miners, were determined to find the missing persons. “But, the safety of the rescuers is important. During our review, we suggested that robots be used where possible. There should be no further loss of lives. There should be not a single further incident, or even an injury to the rescuers,” he said.Revanth Reddy said that the rat miners team had dug through the silt where the NGRI had reported finding ‘anomalies’ with their ground penetrating radar. While it was expected that these ‘anomalies’ where were the missing workers were located, the rat miners only found soft plastic debris. “The search will continue and experts are still working on locating the missing workers,” Revanth Reddy said.
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