Telangana tunnel collapse: Rescuers recover first body after 16 days

Rescue workers on Sunday recovered the body of one of the eight men who have been trapped in an under-construction tunnel in Telangana, 16 days after its roof partially collapsed, The News Minute reported.

A section of the Srisailam Left Bank Canal tunnel in Nagarkurnool district collapsed on February 22. Besides trapping the eight men, about a dozen others were injured.

The workers are believed to be trapped in the last 50 metres in front of the tunnel boring machine that was being used. This spot is about 14 km inside the tunnel.

The person whose body was recovered has been identified as Gurpreet Singh from Punjab’s Tarn Taran and worked as a tunnel boring machine operator, The Indian Express reported.

Trained cadaver dogs, brought in by the Kerala Police three days ago, identified the presence of a human about 100 metres from the accident site in the final stretch of the tunnel, allowing rescuers to recover Singh’s body on Sunday.

Rescue operations to locate the remaining seven workers continued on Monday.

Nagarkurnool Superintendent of Police Vaibhav Gaikwad told The Indian Express that digging in the last 50 metres towards the rock end had not started “due to the risk involved”.

#SLBCTunnelCollapse

On 16th day, rescue teams recovered a body from the debris, found trapped in TBM machine inside the #SLBCTunnel#RescueOperation continues in the #SLBC tunnel, to locate...

Read more