India tunnel collapse: Dubai Eye News contact Triton Risk Management for comment.
Like many throughout the industry, Triton has been monitoring the situation in India and how the events are unfolding on a daily basis. Whilst our thoughts are with those affected, we are hopeful of a successful outcome.
As industry specialists around the world pool their knowledge and expertise to assist in rescue efforts, Triton were contacted for comment by Dubai Eye’s ‘The Agenda’ hosted by Georgia Tolley. (40min)
Rescue efforts continue to free workers trapped for six days
Rescuers have drilled about one-third of the way into the debris of the tunnel collapse in Uttarakhand in northern India to reach 40 workers trapped inside for six days, media reports have said.
Drilling had penetrated through about 21m of debris by Friday morning, Devendra Singh Patwal, a disaster management officer, told Reuters.
A total distance of nearly 60m must be drilled to reach the workers.
The men have been trapped since Sunday when a section of the 4.5km Silkyara Bend-Barkot Tunnel, being developed for National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited, suffered a part collapse.
A jacked 120mm* diameter steel pipe has enabled workers to be supplied with food, water and oxygen.
Initial efforts to create an escape route by jacking a 900mm-diameter pipe through the collapse debris – and also to excavate with an 800mm auger – failed because boulders blocked the auger. A more powerful auger – of the same type that was used in the 2010 Chilean mining emergency – has now been deployed and “several new segments have been completed in the newest 800mm diameter tunnel attempt”.
The ground is reportedly a mixture of soft ground and hard boulders and collapsed structural steel ribs and lattice girders. There is a very high risk of encountering impenetrable obstacles or possibly causing further falls of ground.