Silkyara tunnel accident

Location: located in Uttarkashi district of Uttrakhand state of India.

Length: 4.531 km

Importance: to connect the Gangotri and Yamunotri road, which will reduce the time of travel from 50 minutes to 5 minutes and distance from 20 km to 4.5 km. It will also reduce the environmental pollution road accidents and harm from land slide. It will also helpful in protecting the Himalayan alpine shrubs those are very rarely found in another part of the world. A lot of them are having very high medicinal value.

Tunnel work: started in July 2018

Accident date: 12 November 2023 at 5:30 AM.

Part of tunnel collapsed and 41 workers trapped inside the tunnel, this happened 200 meter inside the tunnel from opening.

Rescue team work: tunnel boring machine succeeded in first phase and oxygen supply started. After that 6 inch pipe installed by which dry fruits and Khichdi (Indian food made from rice and pulse) supplied, fresh drinking water and camera also sent for observation.

On 25th November wider boring machine stuck and broke into pieces inside the hole. This happened after 75% work completed now the team is working on proper alternatives. Now rat hole mining and vertical mining started.

Om Prakash