A devastating surge of slurry and groundwater tore through an under-construction diversion tunnel in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district on Thursday evening, claiming the lives of at least seven construction laborers and leaving fourteen others wounded.
The accident unfolded around 6:45 PM during an active work shift inside the Vishnugad-Pipalkoti Hydroelectric Project site at Mayapur, a major power installation run by state-owned THDC India Limited. A sudden hillside cave-in and intense water breach choked the narrow passage with heavy silt within minutes, trapping a crew of 22 men deep underground with virtually no exit path.
Emergency search-and-rescue teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), and the Indian Army launched a joint overnight operation to extract survivors.
Responders relied on makeshift drum rafts to push through flooded sections while continuous high-capacity pumps worked to hold back steadily rising seepage. Medics tended to pulled-out workers on the ground before moving the injured to the Gopeshwar district facility and higher medical centers in Srinagar and Rishikesh.
Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami ordered an inquiry into the tunnel collapse and reached out to counterparts in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to coordinate relief for migrant worker families. The tragedy once again brings sharp focus to the severe hazards of aggressive tunneling projects in the geologically unstable, landslide-prone valleys of the upper Himalayas.