Tunnel collapse in Telangana leaves eight workers trapped and rescue efforts stalled
Rescuers in the southern Indian state of Telangana were racing to reach eight construction workers trapped inside a tunnel after part of the roof collapsed at the Srisailam Left Bank Canal project. Officials said dozens of workers escaped, but eight men remained inside after the collapse early on a Saturday morning, and the rescue effort had already been under way for more than 72 hours by the time of the report.
The collapse happened inside the 43km tunnel in Nagarkurnool district, about 13km from the opening, as around 50 workers were inside the site. Authorities said 43 workers made it out safely, but the rest were cut off when a slab of concrete covering seepage on the roof gave way. At least a dozen workers were injured in the immediate aftermath.
The conditions inside the tunnel made the rescue operation far more difficult than a normal excavation. Officials said loose soil, mud and slush repeatedly slowed progress, and teams had been unable to establish contact with the trapped men or deliver oxygen and other supplies. Jupally Krishna Rao, a state minister overseeing the operation, said the chances of survival were very remote, a blunt assessment that underlined how uncertain the outcome had become.
Specialist rescuers, including so-called rat-hole miners, were brought in to help clear the debris. The same type of team had previously taken part in the rescue of workers trapped in Uttarakhand in 2023, and officials said they had completed about 33km of excavation while roughly 10km still remained. To reach the trapped section, crews had to travel by train, then use a conveyor belt and continue on foot, while also pumping out water to try to preserve oxygen levels.
The tunnel is part of the Telangana government’s long-running irrigation project and runs through a hilly, forested area inside the Nagarjuna Sagar-Srisailam tiger reserve. Officials said construction had resumed only four days before the accident after a break of nearly three years. The location, the unstable ground and the scale of the debris all combined to slow progress and keep families waiting for news.
For relatives, the rescue effort was being measured in fear and hope rather than engineering milestones. Many of the trapped workers are daily wage labourers, and family members described both anger at the risk and desperation for any sign of life. For authorities, the immediate question was whether the men could still be reached in time. The larger one was how a project of this scale, in such difficult terrain, ended with eight people still trapped underground while the search for a way through continued.
