No trace yet of seven persons still trapped under the SLBC tunnel debris, despite 24×7 work

HYDERABAD There was no trace yet of the seven remaining persons trapped under the debris about 14 km inside the Srisailam Left Bank Canal tunnel despite round-the-clock excavation of debris being in progress between the D1 and D2 points identified by the cadaver sniffer dog squad from Kerala on the 26th day of rescue operations on Wednesday. The debris excavation work is being taken up carefully as it contains metal parts of the tunnel boring machine and electrical cables. According to the officials monitoring the rescue operation, the rescue teams were using water jets to expose the buried metal parts of the TBM and its support system to facilitate the technicians from the South Central Railway to cut them into pieces with the help of gas cutters so that they could be shifted out of the tunnel after being loaded into the loco-trolleys. Special Chief Secretary Arvind Kumar, District Collector of Nagarkurnool Santosh Badavath, Superintendent of Police Vaibhav Gaikwad and team leaders of different rescue agencies reviewed the progress of excavation being done inside the tunnel.