DEHRADUN: At least 40 construction workers were trapped Sunday after the road tunnel they were building collapsed in northern India, with rescuers scrambling to reach them beneath piles of debris.
The collapse occurred early Sunday morning in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand when a group of workers were moving out and replacement workers were going in.
“About 200 meters (218 yards) of the tunnel have collapsed,” Durgesh Rathodi, a state disaster response official, told AFP from the site.
“About 40 to 41 workers are trapped inside. Oxygen is being supplied through the debris, but more rubble is coming down as rescuers try to remove the obstruction.”
The 4.5-kilometer (2.7-mile) tunnel is being constructed between Silkyara and Dandalgaon to connect two of the holiest Hindu shrines of Uttarkashi and Yamnotri.
Photographs released by the government rescue teams showed huge piles of concrete blocking the wide tunnel, with twisted metal bars on its broken roof poking down in front of the rubble.
“Pray to god that those workers trapped inside the tunnel are brought out safely,” Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami wrote on social media platform X.
Rathodi, the disaster response official, said a message was sent to the trapped workers through a tube that is pumping oxygen into the blocked portion of the tunnel, assuring them “all efforts are being made for your safety.”
“No response to the message has come from inside yet,” he told AFP, adding that more rubble was coming down from above as machines constantly removed the debris.
A local police officer told the Press Trust of India news agency they were “very optimistic” the men would be rescued safely, but added it was “difficult to say how long it will take.”
The tunnel is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Char Dham Road Project, which is meant to improve connectivity for some of the most popular Hindu shrines in the country, as well as areas bordering China.
Accidents on large infrastructure construction sites are common in India.
In January, at least 200 people were killed in flash floods in ecologically fragile Uttarakhand in a disaster that experts partly blamed on excessive development.
At least 40 Indian workers trapped in tunnel collapse
https://arab.news/5xhne
At least 40 Indian workers trapped in tunnel collapse
- Indian workers trapped under debris of road tunnel they were building in Uttarakhand state
- The tunnel is part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Char Dham Road Project
Bomb attacks on Thailand petrol stations injure 4: army
- Authorities did not announce any arrests or say who may be behind the attacks
BANGKOK: Assailants detonated bombs at nearly a dozen petrol stations in Thailand’s south early Sunday, injuring four people, the army said, the latest attacks in the insurgency-hit region.
A low-level conflict since 2004 has killed thousands of people as rebels in the Muslim-majority region bordering Malaysia battle for greater autonomy.
Several bombs exploded within a 40-minute period after midnight on Sunday, igniting 11 petrol stations across Thailand’s southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala, an army statement said.
Authorities did not announce any arrests or say who may be behind the attacks.
“It happened almost at the same time. A group of an unknown number of men came and detonated bombs which damaged fuel pumps,” Narathiwat Governor Boonchauy Homyamyen told local media, adding that one police officer was injured in the province.
A firefighter and two petrol station employees were injured in Pattani province, the army said.
All four were admitted to hospitals, none with serious injuries, a Thai army spokesman told AFP.
Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters that security agencies believed the attacks were a “signal” timed with elections for local administrators taking place on Sunday, and “not aimed at insurgency.”
The army’s commander in the south, Narathip Phoynok, told reporters he ordered security measures raised to the “maximum level in all areas” including at road checkpoints and borders.
The nation’s deep south is culturally distinct from the rest of Buddhist-majority Thailand, which took control of the region more than a century ago.
The area is heavily policed by Thai security forces — the usual targets of insurgent attacks.
