Officials said more of the final stretch of the tunnel was being cleared and silt removal was continuing.
Hyderabad:Search continued in the disaster struck Srisailam Left Bank Tunnel near Domalapenta village of Nagarkurnool district of Telangana on Monday, day 37 of the operations with officials hopeful that they may be able to find at least one more of the still missing six tunnel workers in the debris and silt in the next couple of days.
Officials said more of the final stretch of the tunnel was being cleared and silt removal was continuing. This work is expected to gain more speed when efforts to extend the conveyor belt from the current 13.6 km point to the 13.7 km point. The collapse in the tunnel occurred at the 13.9 km point on February 22, and the last 30 metres towards the collapse zone has been declared as a prohibited zone.
While some of the missing workers are feared to be buried in this zone, officials said on Monday, large chunks of metal from the tunnel boring machine, that were broken and buried under the silt, and some which had to be cut from the machine, were removed and carried out of the tunnel clearing the path for the excavators being used to lift and remove the silt.
