UTTARAKHAND
appropriate, are being taken,” he told Rajya Sabha.
Shah added that according to the state government, there was no danger of downstream flooding and the rise in water level was contained. The first instalment of ₹468.50 crore, out of an allocation of ₹1,041 crore under the State Disaster Risk Management Fund (SDRMF), was released to the state, he said.
The disaster struck on Sunday morning, when a glacier breach sent a torrent of water, rock and dust hurtling down a valley into the Rishiganga river, where workers were building a dam.
Visuals showed floodwaters smashing most of the plant before roaring downstream into the Dhauliganga and partially damaging the National Thermal Power Corporation’s (NTPC) 530 MW Tapovan Vishnugrad project, roughly 8km away.
The surging waters washed away homes, cut off 13 villages, and snapped crucial road links and bridges. The disaster is the worst to hit the state since the 2013 Kedarnath floods killed 5,700 people and highlighted the impact of the climate crisis and degradation of the fragile ecology.
A focus of the operation is the 1.7km tunnel. Since Sunday, rescue workers have used machine excavators and shovels to clear sludge from the tunnel in an attempt to reach the workers as hopes for their survival fade.
“We have been able to clear about 110m of the slush from the tunnel, but we may have not covered even half of the distance. The drones didn’t help much. We can’t say how long the rescue operation will go on,” said Benudhar Nayak, commandant of the Indo Tibetan Border Police’s (ITBP) first battalion.
Rescuers used wooden planks to negotiate the mud, and even tried to rappel into the tunnel by fixing hooks to the roof, but couldn’t make much progress.
“We tried to push in our men, but there isn’t enough working space inside. Also, as we go deeper, we are facing a barrage of slush and debris hurtling towards us,” said an army lieutenant colonel requesting not to be named.
Until Tuesday evening, there was no contact with the trapped men, which include engineers and labourers. According to a map with the authorities, the men are stranded at a point where the main tunnel is joined by a 240m-long subsidiary tunnel.
“The rescue workers are thinking to drill the tunnel from outside and then get inside with the help of ropes to rescue the trapped workers,” said Kumar.
Personnel rescued 12 people on Sunday evening from the other end of the tunnel. They told authorities that a bulldozer and two multi-utility vehicles are trapped with the 35 men.
“We see that as good news. The vehicles could possibly have stopped slush from drowning the trapped men. They could also have served as a safe space for them,” said Rajiv Chhibber, an army major general.
As hope of the rescue dimmed and officers refused to give a time frame for the operation, clots of distraught relatives gathered at the site.
“I couldn’t bear the cold at night. I don’t know how my brother will survive inside. I am just hoping he has found a space inside one of the vehicles stranded inside,” said Sunil Pal, whose brother Amit Pal is trapped.
Chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat inspected the 13 villages cut off by the floodwaters and said the government was air dropping relief packets for the 2,500 stranded people. “I would urge all the people to keep calm as government has all the required resources to tackle the situation,” he said.
A list of missing people released by the state government showed the maximum were workers at the two power plants, who hailed from Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, West Bengal, Jharkhand and other states. The list also included 12 local villagers.