In the face of numerous challenges, officials maintain hope for a potential breakthrough in the ongoing operation to rescue the 41 workers trapped in the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi. On Monday, the initiation of manual horizontal drilling was led by the Madras Sappers, an engineering group within the Corps of Engineers of the Indian Army. The operation employs the \”rat mining\” technique to clear debris, with support from civilians experienced in rat-hole mining.
Concurrently, vertical drilling was in progress, reaching a depth of 36 meters by 7 p.m. Rescuers face the task of drilling through 86 meters of mountain vertically, with an additional 10-12 meters requiring manual horizontal drilling. The progress made on Monday covered a distance of 0.9 meters.
