Uttarakhand Glacier Burst: Rescue Ops Resume Partially After Halt As Dhauli Ganga Water Level Rises

The halt in rescue operations were 'temporary' as the massive efforts are now partially resumed by multi-agency rescuers to break through the sludge and debris that choked the tunnel after Sunday's disaster, which left 34 dead and about 170 missing.

(Image: PTI)

Tapovan: After being halted for hours, the rescue operations had once again resumed at the tunnel in Tapovan where 25-35 people are trapped for over four days since the glacier disaster took place in Uttarakhand. The water level in Dhauliganga river surged again on Thursday, forcing rescue workers to suspend efforts and rush out of the tunnel along with their heavy machines engaged in drilling through the debris.

As per reports, the rescuers had also started drilling through the debris from opening of the river to supply life-saving devices including oxygen cylinders to the trapped workers, which was an apparent change in strategy after trying to shift mounds of debris. 

The halt in rescue operations were 'temporary' as the massive efforts are now partially resumed by multi-agency rescuers to break through the sludge and debris that choked the tunnel after Sunday's disaster, which left 34 dead and about 170 missing.

Amid rising concern over those trapped inside, the focal point of the rescue operation remains the 1.5-km "head-race tunnel" - a part of the 2.5-km long network of tunnels.

"A drilling operation was started by the rescue teams at 2 am to peep into the slush-flushing tunnel that is about 12-13 metres below," Vivek Kumar Pandey, the spokesperson for the lead rescue agency, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) told news agency PTI. 

As the continuous flow of slush and silt remains a major obstacle between the rescuers and those trapped inside, a boring operation by a huge machine is being undertaken to see if this problem can be addressed in a different way and the teams can go further deep inside, he added.

According to the information shared by the rescue officials, drilling through the debris started from around 68 metres inside the tunne. The drilling is to be done for 12 metres to access the probable location of those trapped.

Till Wednesday, about 120 metres of slush from the mouth of the tunnel was cleared and those trapped inside were stated to be located somewhere at 180 metres, where the tunnel takes a slip or a turn.