Agonising wait for rescue of Indian tunnel workers goes on as drill breaks down on final stretch

The operation to rescue 41 men trapped in a collapsed tunnel in India’s Uttarakhand state has been delayed again despite reaching the final stages after a drilling machine developed a snag.

The low-wage construction workers remained trapped for the 13th day as efforts to rescue them have been delayed by hurdles.

The rescue operation reached its final stages on Thursday but had to be suspended after a drilling machine hit an iron mesh of lattice girder – a collapsed structural element of the tunnel.

The platform on which the auger drilling machine was fixed was damaged and needed to be repaired, Deepak Patil, who is heading the rescue operation, said.

It forced the team to clear the path manually with gas-cutters, delaying the work by around six hours.

The latest rescue action bulletin by the authorities said the fresh push to insert the pipe started on Friday morning and the pipe reached an additional 1.8m.

But the auger was “pushed slightly back” after a minor vibration was noted in the collapsed structure. An estimated 15m (49ft) of the debris pile is left to be drilled through and a study using ground penetration radar shows there is no metallic obstruction for the next 5m, said Bhaskar Khulbe, a senior tunnel project official.

The bulletin said drilling with the auger machine would start after the welder’s team would manually cut the bent pipe obstructing the drilling.

Australian tunneling expert Arnold Dix, who arrived in India to assist with the rescue work, said the machine has broken down three times and it will be repaired by Friday morning.

“We are only just metres away from finding passage to have the men back. But the men are safe. The auger machine has broken down, it is being repaired and it should be back up tomorrow. The drilling machine has broken down three times,” he told ANI.

He said he was disappointed but not upset as men are safe and said “the men are coming out” in any case.

A part of the 4.5km (3 miles) Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand collapsed on 12 November in a landslide. A communication line was established with the trapped workers following the collapse and have been supplying food, water, snacks and oxygen through a pipeline that was laid for supplying water for the construction work.

On Tuesday, the first visuals of the 41 trapped workers emerged after an endoscopic camera was sent through a pipe which captured the workers’ first images since 12 November.

Authorities planned to retrieve the men by creating a micro-tunnel by sending multiple pipes. The width of the debris is estimated to be 60m (197ft) through which the rescue workers have to pass the pipes.

Meanwhile, anticipation has been building in the families of the trapped workers.

A family member of worker Sushil Sharma said he spoke with him on Friday morning and they are doing fine.

“Everyone is fine inside, and there are facilities. I asked him if he was facing any difficulties, and he said that there were no difficulties,” Haridwar Sharma told ANI.

“They are all just hoping to come out soon. Everything is available there... There is a facility for bathing too... I said that you would surely get out.”

The collapse of the tunnel in a region already prone to landslides has sparked debate among environmentalists about the damaging impact of construction projects in the already fragile Himalayas.

It was part of the Char Dham pilgrimage route, one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, which aims to connect four Hindu pilgrimage sites in the mountains through 890km (550 miles) of roads at a cost of $1.5bn (£1.2bn).