Roof of 44-km-long tunnel collapsed in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district yesterday. Dozens of workers managed to escape, but eight workers who were inside to repair a leak got trapped. There has been no contact with the workers after the accident since an internal communication mechanism failed yesterday. Four teams of the NDRF are on their way to the collapse site while several agencies are already engaged in the rescue operation. The situation is being monitored round-the-clock both at the state and central levels. The Union Home Ministry is also in touch with the state government and concerned departments for assistance. The tunnel is filled with water and workers cannot be located until the debris is cleaned, an NDRf official said. Video shows a rescuer calling out the trapped labourers by name this morning, hoping that their response would help locate them. The report estimated the span of the collapsed roof to be 200 metres, about 13 km from the mouth of the tunnel. It said that noises of shifting boulders indicate the roof in the collapsed site is unstable. The rescue team covered 11 km on a locomotive and the remaining 2km on a conveyor belt. They called out their (workers’) names, but did not get an answer.
