Hyderabad: Despite a massive, unified rescue operation involving 12 teams, including the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the Ar-my, state-run miner Singareni Collieries, specialised rat miners, and other agencies, the eight

workers trapped inside the SLBC tunnel could not be saved. The rescue efforts spanned nearly 200 hours.

Tourism Minister Jupally Krishna Rao, who has been supervising the rescue operations, confirmed that the rescue teams located four bodies buried under two meters of silt and another four un-der seven meters of silt. The National Geophysical Research In-stitute (NGRI) teams identified the bodies using ground-penetrating radar. The deceased include six workers and two en-gineers who were involved in the tunnel project.

Efforts are on to recover four bodies by Sunday afternoon, follow-ing which they will be handed over to their families after post-mortem procedures. However, extricating the remaining four bod-ies remains a challenging task due to continuous water seepage into the tunnel at the 13-km point, where final recovery opera-tions need to be conducted.

Irrigation Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the govern-ment would provide full compensation to the victims' families, both from government funds and the construction company re-sponsible for employing them. Additionally, the government pledged continued support to the bereaved families.

An official stated that repairs to the damaged portion of the con-veyor belt within the tunnel were expected to be completed by Saturday. The tragic incident occurred on February 22, when a section of the tunnel collapsed. Over 500 skilled personnel from the Army, Navy, Singareni Collieries, and other agencies have been involved in the extensive rescue operation since last Satur-day. Among the eight victims, two were engineers, two were opera-tors, and the remaining four were laborers from Jharkhand. The tragedy has highlighted the risks associated with such infrastruc-ture projects and the importance of stringent safety measures in tunnel construction.