The Uttarakhand flash floods that shook the nation on February 7 claimed various lives. It’s been more than 10 days due to the fact the tragedy search and rescue operations continue and dozens are however to be traced.
How search operations had been performed and what has been accomplished so far
ITBP rescued 12 labourers a couple of hours immediately after the accident occurred from a different element of the tunnel that got chocked immediately after the rush of water broken the hydropower project in Dhauli Ganga river downstream in Tapovan.
But the principal search operation had to at a web site exactly where 34 labourers working on the project had been feared to have been trapped 180 metres inside the tunnel. ITBP and NDRF workers attempted to clear the debris to get out the workers but more they dug in, more they identified the exact same.
Several alternate attempts had been produced to uncover the workers from an aerial survey working with a helicopter-borne Electromagnetic Pulse Imager to get an thought as to how lengthy is the tunnel and a drone camera was also utilized to uncover any proof of humans trapped in that stretch but without the need of any luck.
Next, the rescue text changed their method and began looking for a different silt filtration tunnel (SFT) positioned 12 metres under the intake tunnel. Drilling started in the silt tunnel but more and more sludge kept interfering with the procedure. Only immediately after drilling was completed t a distance of 75 metres from the opening of the Intake Adit tunnel, the very first breakthrough was accomplished when six bodies trapped into the SFT had been recovered immediately after 7 days, Till now, 11 bodies have been identified.
Bodies had been also recovered from several other web sites like a different hydropower project in Raini village, 5 km upstream from the NTPC web site, in the Dauli Ganga and Alaknanda rivers in districts of Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Tehri Garhwal.
What lies ahead for the rescue group?
So far 58 bodies have been traced from all the web sites, 146 persons are nonetheless missing.
About 5 per cent of the 2.5-km lengthy tunnel at TNPC’s project has been cleared. 34 labourers are feared to have been trapped at 180m depth even though 3 other 1.7 km inside.
Ten days now, there is hardly any hope for any labourer who is however to identified to have survived. Chamoli Chief Medical Officer Dr G S Rana mentioned that the labourers who had been trapped in the tunnel and in Raini village died inside half an hour.
Nevertheless, the complete tunnel will be cleared of all the slush to recover the bodies. The search operations will continue till all the missing persons have not been identified, DGP Ashok Said without the need of providing a time frame.
Huge deposits of mud and silt about the barrage in Tapovan and on each banks of the Rishi Ganga river in Raini village is causing challenges for the search group but as the temperatures rise the a great deal will dry up assisting the teams to direct their search to newer web sites closer to the river for the missing persons.
It is not however clear if any of the persons who had been washed away by the river close to the barrage on the Dhauli Ganga could be traced.
At least 476 NDRF, SDRF, ITBP and Army personnel has been deployed for the search operations along with healthcare officers, police and fire and Revenue Department workers in all the web sites from Raini village to Srinagar downstream. Another 326 personnel are standing by.