Eighth body recovered from flooded Uttarakhand tunnel; two workers still missing

Rescue teams on Saturday recovered another body from a flooded tunnel under construction at the Vishnugad-Pipalkoti hydroelectric project in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district, taking the reported death toll to eight as efforts continued to locate two missing workers.

Twenty-two workers were trapped inside the three-kilometre tunnel at around 7 pm on Thursday after water and debris suddenly entered it, District Disaster Management Officer N K Joshi said.

The accident occurred at the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation’s project in Mayapur, Pipalkoti. Landslides and ground subsidence reportedly caused debris and water to inundate nearly half the tunnel.

Seven bodies had been recovered by Friday. Chamoli Additional District Magistrate Vivek Prakash said rescuers found one more body on Saturday, although the deceased worker’s identity had not immediately been confirmed.

Emergency teams were using suction pumps to remove water from the tunnel as they raced to reach the two workers believed to be still trapped inside.

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami visited Pipalkoti on Friday and reviewed the rescue operation.

The seven workers identified earlier were Pradeep Singh Pawar of Tehri, Mukesh of Chamoli, Durlabh Sharma of Bihar, Vijay Hansda and Jitendra Kumar of Jharkhand, and Lokeshwar and Bhuneshwar of Chhattisgarh.

The three workers reported missing as of Friday were Lucas Topno from Jharkhand and Chetan Poyam and Devnath from Chhattisgarh. Authorities had yet to clarify whether the body recovered on Saturday was that of one of them.

With PTI inputs