Trail of destruction
The personnel toiled for 4 hours before an engineer alerted the ITBP about an escape door that served as an extraction point for 12 workers on Sunday
People look at the heavily damaged NTPC Tapovan hydel plant on the Dhauliganga river on Monday, a day after flash floods in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand. Rescuers have been working round-the-clock to find any survivors in the region.
JOSHIMATH: Luck played a part in the timely rescue of 12 workers from one end of the 1.7kmlong tunnel of NTPC Limited’s hydropower project in Uttarakhand’s Tapovan in the immediate aftermath of the flash flood on Sunday. The rescuers toiled for at least four hours to remove slush from the tunnel’s exit; then an engineer employed at the project alerted the ITBP about an escape door located about 300 feet away from the exit that could serve as an extraction point for the workers.
Thereafter, it took ITBP men just about 90 minutes to rescue the dozen workers, three of whom were unconscious, and all of suffering from hypothermia. Importantly, all were alive.
But as the sun set, so did the luck of the rescuers. When it came to saving workers — at least 37 of them — trapped at the other end of the tunnel, the rescuers continued to labour till well into the day on Monday, in an effort to reach them.
“The only choice we have is to use an earth mover to remove the slush, one scoop at a time. We have been able to move 50 metres (into the tunnel). Unlike the other end of the tunnel, there is no safety valve on this side,” said Benudhar Nayak, commandant of ITBP first Batallion, who is overseeing the operations along with NDRF and the Army.
About 8km from this spot, in Raini village, another group of rescuers is removing slush in front of a smaller hydropower project that was washed away by the flood, but their progress has been slow. “There is no rescue going on here. We are just hoping to recover bodies trapped in the gates,” said Sumit Kalkhudiya, an Indian Army officer.
That the floods happened on a Sunday helped save lives.
On Sundays, just about half the staff work at the two project sites. At the Tapovan site, about 150 workers were on duty and at Raini site, about 50.
At Tapovan, around 50 men were working in the tunnel; the others were deployed elsewhere. But when the water and debris came gushing down the Dhauliganga river, all workers were under water level. Many tried to run up the hill. Some succeeded. Others were washed away within seconds. And some others were trapped in the tunnel.
THE TUNNEL
According to rescuers and workers, the 1.7 km-long tunnel is about 20 feet high and 15 feet wide. “Inside, the main tunnel is joined by another tunnel about 300 metres long,” said Harinder Singh, a welder at the project.
When the flood hit, the tunnel was quickly filled with water and debris. The rescuers, who arrived a little after noon, began by focusing on the tunnel’s exit as it was down the slope and had much less slush.
“Since this end of the tunnel was difficult to access, we used planks and steel sheets to reach the entrance... We weren’t making much progress when an engineer mentioned an escape door on the side of the tunnel,” said Nayak.
The rescue was briefly halted as villagers warned about the water level rising, but the operation resumed soon.
THE BREAKTHROUGH
“In the next 45 minutes, we were able to locate the escape door amid the slush, break it open, and remove the iron mesh,” Nayak added.
The rescuers found the workers trapped just about 30-40 feet away from the door. The rescuers threw ropes to the trapped workers, but they were so weak that they couldn’t grab them.
“One of our officers then entered the tunnel to tie each of them with ropes before we pulled them out,” said Kalam Singh Negi, head constable with ITBP. By the time the last of the men was brought out, it was 5.45pm on Sunday.
BACK TO DESPAIR
The other end of the tunnel, meanwhile, remained inaccessible despite use of earth movers.
Initially, three earth movers worked to remove the slush at the entrance of the tunnel, but once the entrance was breached, the progress slowed since only one machine could work at once.
ITBP officers estimated that the workers trapped on this side were about 200 metres into the tunnel. The workers, however, estimated that they were trapped at least 500 metres inside. “At the rate the work is going on, it could take up to a week to rescue them.i don’t know if my brother will make it,” said Joginder Tamta, whose brother, a worker at the site, is trapped inside.