Three trapped for two days in Himachal tunnel

By Newsgram Staff Writer

Shimla: Rescue workers failed to reach the three labourers trapped since Saturday in an under-construction tunnel in the town of Bilaspur in Himachal Pradesh, officials said.

The Border Roads Organisation, which operates under the defence ministry that has been involved in the construction of the Rohtang tunnel, was deployed for the rescue operation.

"The continuous rolling down of debris from the hilltop is hampering the rescue operation," National Highways Authority of India project director Satish Kaul told reporters.

"We are trying to insert a pipe into the debris so that the struck workers could be safely evacuated," Kaul said.

Rescue workers are hopeful that the trapped workers are alive as machines have been deployed to pump oxygen into the tunnel.

The tunnel, which is part of the under-construction four-laning of the Kiratpur-Manali national highway, is located at Tihra, 13 km from district headquarters Bilaspur and 100 km from the state capital.

Workers involved in the construction work blamed the Himalayan Construction Company for lack of safety measures. All the trapped workers belonged to the hill state.

"For the past few days, huge cracks and fissures surfaced in a rock inside the tunnel. The company had been ignoring it and it is due to its negligence that the accident occurred," one of the survivors told police.

The cave-in took place around 8.30 pm on Saturday when the night shift workers were coming to work. The first shift was over at 8 pm, said officials.

(With inputs from IANS)