NAMCHI, July 23: The bodies of all 25 workers have been retrieved from an NHPC hydropower project tunnel under construction, which had collapsed in Sikkim's Namchi district three days ago, officials said on Thursday.
Three of them were recovered during the day, they said.
The labourers were inside the NHPC Teesta Stage VI Hydropower Project tunnel that caved in following an explosion suspected to have been caused by methane gas shortly after 1 pm on Monday. The state government has constituted a high-level committee to investigate the cause and circumstances surrounding the tragic incident and to recommend appropriate measures to prevent similar occurrences in the future, an official said.
All 25 bodies have now been recovered after 72 hours of continuous search operations, K K Roy, a member of the Eastern Coalfield Ltd team, told reporters.
The tunnel was filled with methane gas, mud and water, which made the search operation extremely difficult for those involved in the exercise, he said.
"Members of the search teams had faced difficulties in tracing the bodies. The mud was knee-deep in some places in the tunnel. The team members carried out a comprehensive inspection of the tunnel. After accounting for all recorded missing workers, they confirmed that no one remained trapped inside," Roy said.
Eleven of the deceased workers were from West Bengal, four from Jharkhand, two each from Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand, and one each from Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Sikkim, Punjab, and Assam, another official said.
"All recovered bodies have been sent to Singtam District Hospital, STNM Hospital Sochakgang in Gangtok, Namchi District Hospital, and the Central Referral Hospital (CRH), Manipal, for the necessary medico-legal procedures," he said. |
