India Rescues 20 Workers Trapped in Tunnel
Date: 10-Aug-04
Country: INDIA
Author: Geetinder Garewal
The construction workers, building a tunnel for a power project, were trapped underground when the exit was blocked following a storm on Sunday in Kullu district in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh, 300 miles north of New Delhi.
"All 20 people have been saved as there was plenty of oxygen in the kilometer-long tunnel," A.K. Puri, director general of police, told Reuters.
"Rescue officials and locals used excavation machinery to dig through the mouth of the tunnel. Last night's rain made the excavation work easier."
A National Hydroelectric Power Corp official said the condition of the workers was fine.
"As these men have been without food for almost 30 hours, they have been administered glucose and will be kept under observation for some time," said NHPC's Gyan Bhadra.
SLUSH AND BOULDERS
Dozens of huts where the mostly migrant laborers lived in Barshaini village were washed away after the cloudburst which brought down tons of slush and boulders.
"The river changed course suddenly due to the flash flood and the water level rose by six meters, blocking the tunnel and damaging roads and machinery in the area," R.D. Nazeen, deputy commissioner at Kullu, told Reuters.
The worst floods in 15 years have hit South Asia over the past few weeks, making millions of people homeless and killing more than 1,700, mostly in Bangladesh and eastern India.
After lashing the eastern part of the subcontinent, the monsoon rains moved westwards last week to wreak havoc in the Indian states of Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana.
Flood waters have now receded, but heavy rains continue to pound northwest India.
In Bangladesh, heavy seas in the Bay of Bengal washed away part of an island embankment and inundated several villages with more than 50,000 people in the past three days, officials said.
"The turbulent sea eroded parts of the embankment and inundated several villages," Mohammad Imamuddin, administrator of Hatiya island, 150 miles southeast of Dhaka told Reuters.
Floods destroyed crops in large parts of that farm-dependent region and forced closure of factories, causing losses totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. They also disrupted rail and road links as well as communications and power networks.
Back in Himachal Pradesh, authorities issued a red alert and evacuated hundreds of people on both sides of the Sutlej river over fears that an artificial lake in Tibet could overflow or burst within the next 12 hours due to incessant rains.
"The Pareechoo lake has risen by a meter this morning and it could overflow anytime," Kanwar Shamsher Singh, chief secretary of Himachal Pradesh, told Reuters. (Additional reporting by Nizam Ahmed in DHAKA)
