They were all employed by a company that had to check the tunnel.
Banihal/Jammu:
One worker was killed and three were rescued after part of an under-construction tunnel collapsed on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway in the union’s Ramban district, officials said. Nine workers are still trapped in the rubble as rescue operations continue. However, their chances of survival are slim, the officials said.
“Thursday around 10:15 PM, the T3 audit tunnel on the highway near Khooni Nallah in Ramban collapsed, trapping 11-12 Sarla Company workers working there,” a senior official told PTI.
The rescue operation on the stretch of the national highway between Ramban and Ramsu started at midnight and was in full swing with rock crushers used to reach the detainees, he said.
Division Commissioner of Jammu Ramesh Kumar and Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Jammu Zone, Mukesh Singh visited the scene of the incident where a massive rescue operation is underway.
Union minister Jitendra Singh called the collapse of part of the tunnel “unfortunate”.
“I am in constant contact with DC Mussrat Islam. Nearly 10 workers were trapped under the rubble. Two more were rescued and hospitalized with injuries. Rescue operations are in full swing. Civil administration and police are monitoring the situation .” he said.
Those trapped in the tunnel are Jadav Roy (23), Gautam Roy (22), Sudhir Roy (31), Dipak Roy (33) and Parimal Roy (38), all from West Bengal, Shiva Chouhan (26) from Assam , Nepali citizens Nawaraj Chowdhury (26) and Kushi Ram (25) and residents of Jammu and Kashmir Muzaffar (38) and Israt (30), officials said.
Two of those hospitalized are identified as Vishnu Gola (33) from Jharkhand and Ameen (26) from Jammu and Kashmir. The third person, whose name has not been released, has been taken to Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu, police said.
They were all employed by a company that had to check the tunnel, they said.
Deputy Commissioner of Ramban Massaratul Islam and Chief Inspector of Police Mohita Sharma are on the scene along with the Deputy Inspector General of Police and oversee the rescue operation.
Jammu’s division commissioner Kumar said the rescue operation is likely to take more time as rock crushers are used to create space to reach the detainees.
While officials claimed the audit tunnel is only three to four meters long, Kumar said, “It is not known whether they (those trapped) are inside or outside the tunnel area. There is debris everywhere.”
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
