India’s ‘rathole’ tunnel rescue spotlights dangers of Himalayan infrastructure work
- The workers’ 17-day ordeal in a tunnel in Uttarakhand is just the latest in a string of accidents and disasters in the ecologically sensitive region
- Experts caution that development work should be done in consultation with teams of scientists, geologists and engineers to minimise disasters
“The government should audit and review the construction quality of all tunnels in the Himalayas. Once they are opened, they will also be prone to jerking and shaking movement due to the traffic,” said Yashpal Sundriyal, a geology professor at the Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in northern India’s Uttarakhand state, where the under-construction tunnel is located.
“The geology of the tunnel which is being constructed is on weak rocks. When we are constructing anything in such a zone, we will have to take extra care,” he added.
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India’s mountainous northern regions are prone to shearing – the deformation of rocks as they move against each other – which makes them highly vulnerable to fragmentation and collapse, according to Sundriyal.
He said the main reason that the tunnel caved in was that the support systems needed to ensure stability were not installed before the construction team commenced work.
The workers became trapped under 60 metres of rubble when a landslide caused a portion of the Silkyara tunnel – part of a US$1.5 billion project to connect key Hindu pilgrimage sites spread across some 890km – to cave in.