Glacier burst: Drone, dog squads roped in to rescue workers stuck in tunnel

Chamoli: Rescue agencies, including the Army, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), are using drones and dog squad to look for workers trapped inside the NTPC hydel power project, following the glacier burst in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district.

SDRF Deputy Director General Riddhim Aggarwal said here on Wednesday that drones were being used for thermal and laser scanning of the tunnel, to get traces of the trapped workers.

“Helicopters are also being used for remote sensing to enable geographical mapping of the tunnel. This will not only clear the situation to a great extent, but also tell us about the amount of muck inside,” said Mr Agarwal.

He further said that currently, scientists were trying to read and understand the digital messages received from the mapping.

A Senior Engineer present at the site of the Uttarakhand Public Works Department (PWD) said that whenever the tunnel is made, the geographical mapping is done through remote-sensing.

Through it, data related to the geographical structure inside the ground is available. Also, the drone provides more information through geo-mapping to understand the underground situation more accurately.

In addition, thermal scanning is done to get information about a living being inside the ground, he said. But the scope of thermal scanning is very less.

“For this, scanning is done through laser, so that we get the thermal image below the ground,” he added.

Relief and rescue work is going on at a war footing.

The incident occurred after a portion of Nanda Devi glacier broke off in Tapovan area of Joshimath in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district on Sunday morning and damaged the Rishiganga dam on Alaknanda river.

Thirty-two bodies have been recovered, while 174 people were still missing. (UNI)