Tunnelling expert Arnold Dix calls Uttarkashi tunnel collapse 'unusual occurrence', suggests probe
PTC News Desk: International tunnelling expert Arnold Dix said there was no chance of a collapse in the area where the incident occurred, where 41 workers have been trapped for two weeks while urging an investigation.
"It may have been an unusual situation occurring here where the class of rock changes. It has to be investigated. The area that collapsed hasn't collapsed before; it wasn't even given any clue that it was going to collapse before. So, it is a part of the challenge for us--what is it about the ground here, this mountain that caught us on the backfoot," the underground expert stated.
He also stated that the auger machine cutting that became stuck in the debris of the Silkyara tunnel is moving quickly now that plasma cutters were brought in on Sunday morning.
"The auger machine failed, and we are having a lot of technical difficulties in getting the auger out of the pipe. That's (the process of cutting it out) going much faster this morning as plasma cutters have come."
"Brave men who are going in there in a pipe with plasma cutters and cutting it piece by piece--that's happening now. The progress is faster this morning. Once we have the auger out, we can go in and have a look at the pipe, see what condition it is in, and then we can assess what next," he further said.
Speaking about the ongoing rescue efforts, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami stated that manual drilling would begin once the auger machine was cut and removed.
"The auger machine has to be cut and brought out. It seems that it will be completed soon, within a few more hours. After that, manual drilling will begin," CM said.
On Sunday morning, the plasma cutter, which had been specially requisitioned and flown to the tunnel site from Hyderabad to aid in the process of removing the heavy-duty drilling machine and the stuck auger blades from inside the tunnel, was put to use.
Even before the new machine arrived at the tunnel site in the early hours of Sunday, the process of removing the auger blades from the rubble was underway.
- ANI
