Silkyara (Uttarkashi): Praveen Kumar Yadav, a mechanic of the Trenchless Engineering Services, has been at the forefront of removing obstacles that have come in the way of an American auger machine drilling the debris in the collapsed portion of the Silkyara tunnel to rescue the 41 trapped workers.

When a metal girder came in the way of the auger machine, he crawled through the pipe for over 45 metres and cut the pipe using a gas cutter in three hours to again get the machine going.

“I had to spend three hours in the pipe to remove the obstacle. There was a shortage of oxygen in the pipe. It’s a risky job. But we are committed to taking our brothers (trapped workers) out,” said Yadav, a resident of Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh (UP). Yadav said he has been doing such work for the past 14 years.

At around 1.30 am on November 23, when a different teams of experts, including those from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), were called in to remove the metal girder, their attempts were not successful. That was when Yadav and his fellow mechanic Balwinder were called in.

Uttarakhand government’s secretary Neeraj Kharwal recognised their hard work and courage during a press conference on Thursday. “The two experts spent two-three hours inside the pipeline. They cut the metal lattice girder using the gas cutters,” he said.

“It feels good to be recognised,” said Yadav.

Also Read: Lessons from the Uttarkashi mishap

With 46.8 metres of drilling done so far, frequent obstacles in the remaining stretch of the collapsed portion of the Silkyara-Barkot tunnel have been delaying the rescue operation. According to officials, they can’t give a time frame in which they can get a breakthrough as rescuers are not aware of obstacles that lie ahead in the debris. They said there could be more metal and girders in the debris.

Bhaskar Khulbe, former advisor to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), said, “We are hopeful of getting the breakthrough once the drilling begins as they have also taken the help of experts to know about the obstacles in the debris. A company named Parsons conducted a ground penetration radar (GPR) study and results of its study have stated that there are no metallic obstructions in the next five metres,” he said.

GPR is a geophysical method that uses radar pulses to image the subsurface. It is a non-invasive technique that allows for the detection and mapping of objects and structures beneath the ground surface. GPR can be used in a variety of applications, including archaeology, environmental assessment, geology, and civil engineering.