The rescue operation to trace the eight persons trapped about 14 km inside the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel from morning of last Saturday reached its final stages on Friday (February 28, 2025) evening with the agencies involved speeding up removal of the debris of the tunnel boring machine and silt accumulated in the tunnel.

According to official sources the ground probing radar (GPR) study taken up by the representatives of the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) traced some some soft material under the debris in the last 10-15 metres of the tunnel (towards the end rock) but were not sure whether it was that of those trapped inside.

Two agencies involved in the rescue operation — Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL) and the South Central Railway (SCR) — have stepped up the pace of debris clearance since Friday morning. While the technicians from SCR cut the dismantled parts of the TBM into pieces so that they could be loaded into small trolleys attached to the locomotive, which is being run till 13.5 km tunnel length from the mouth and removal of silt from 11.5 km to 12.5 km length, the underground specialist miners of SCCL were loading the debris of the TBM and silt on the trolleys with the help of an earthmover.

Click here to read the full story