The rescue teams initially discovered a right hand in front of the TBM, leading them to conclude that the body was trapped under the debris.
Nalgonda: After nine days of intensive rescue operations, emergency teams recovered the body of a worker trapped under the collapsed roof of the SLBC tunnel on Sunday evening.
The deceased was identified as Gurupreeth Singh, a tunnel boring machine (TBM) operator and employee of Robbins Company from Punjab. His body was located at a depth of approximately 10 feet beneath silt and debris.
The discovery came after rescue teams initially saw a hand in the area they had excavated, in the silt inside the tunnel. This was one of the spots where human remains detection dogs of the Kerala police had indicated the presence of humans.
With worries over the condition of the remains, works from Singareni Collieries, and members of the rat miners team, dug a trench around the area where the hand was seen, and retrieved the body carefully. It was placed in a body bag and sent to Nagarkurnool district hospital for a post mortem examination and then preservation.
“Only after the examination is completed can we declare the identity of the deceased person,” a senior government official at the SLBC tunnel inlet site said.
There was a black thread on a hand as well as a metal bracelet based on which other workers of JP Associates, the contracting company digging the tunnel, identified the body as that of Gurpreet Singh.
The official said that the body was found buried some 10 feet in the silt under a section of the TBM, which too was buried when the tunnel roof collapsed on Februrary 22. After finding the first of the eight missing people on day 16 of the rescue operations, officials said instead of digging pits as earlier, the plan was to now dig trenches covering large portions of the area buried in silt.
“The canine team from Kerala was taken into the tunnel again on Sunday and rescuers marked the spots indicated by the dogs. We hope we can find more of the missing persons in the next few days, and by spreading the diffing into trenches, we hope we can find them faster,” the official said,
Gurupreeth Singh, who joined Robbins India in 2022, was working as a TBM operator. General manager of the Singareni Collieries rescue team, Bhaidya, said the cadaver dogs accurately pinpointed Singh's location, aiding the rescue operation. The team removed the wreckage and debris meticulously to ensure no damage to the body. Bhaidya further informed that excavation efforts continue on the tunnel's left side, aiming to recover bodies of other workers trapped in the accident.
