Brief by Shorts91 Newsdesk / 10:01pm on 27 Nov 2023,Monday India
Authorities said horizontal manual drilling by specialist "rat miners" has begun in the Uttarakhand tunnel where 41 workers remain trapped, unable to rely just on the faulty American auger machine. The miners are used to burrowing narrow mine shafts through primitive techniques to extract coal. Neeraj Khairwal, Secretary, Uttarakhand government, said 24 rat miners will work 24 hours to remove manual debris. The work will be done in three shifts. Once in working condition, the Auger Machine will push the 800-mm pipe forward as the manual drilling progresses. Separately, 36 meters of a potential vertical escape passage has been dug. With main drilling avenues faltering after over 15 days, manual boring by the skilled workers from the sides, top, and other ends is the focus now. Officials indicated with machine failures, the painstaking manual drilling process remains the only certain recourse left to save the group.
