No lessons learnt from Silkyaara tunnel collapse, apparently

 

By Malini Shankar

Digital Discourse Foundation

The very purpose of disaster mitigation is lost if documented lessons are not learnt and mistakes are repeated only for political expediency in the name of development. In the Uttarakhand Silkyaara Tunnel rescue of November 2023, the Public Relations officer of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) refused to acknowledge receipt of email interview questions from this writer. The questions I had sent for an email interview on 8.12.2023 to Sri Kuleesh Anand, PRO, NDRF, New Delhi are copied here below:

1.       Please list the names of the construction workers their age and native place. Kindly provide their contact details to facilitate interview. Kindly arrange for requisite permissions to interview them.

2.       Please give me the names of the rescue companies, and the names of the rat miners who eventually succeeded in the rescue operation.

3.       Whom should I contact in the Ministry of Highways / Surface Transport to seek documentation of the sanctioning of this project?

4.       What was the expenses incurred by NDRF to rescue the workers stuck in the tunnel?

5.       What was the expenses incurred in sending food and supplies to the stranded workers? ( I need to calibrate this against the sanctioned budget of the project to decipher cost of disaster mitigation / SAR).

6.       What is the annual budget of NDRF for SAR?

7.       Kindly provide me contact details of international tunnel rescue expert Mr. Arnold Dix (and if possible facilitate an interview with your good offices).

8.       Kindly provide the contact details of any mental health counsellors who have possibly been assigned to counsel the rescued workers.

My email remained unanswered.

The larger question is: Why should we the taxpayers pay for ecologically unsustainable development?

In the tunnel rescue underway in Telangana “Rescuers are racing against time to bring out the eight workers trapped for over 48 hours in a collapsed tunnel in Telangana. A state minister has warned that their survival chances are "very, very remote" as a pileup of muck and water hinders the rescue mission. The Chile mine rescue in 2010 is a watershed in mining disasters, the lessons of which are again lost on NDRF.

Workers who went to repair a leak are trapped for more than 48 hours prompting a state minister to sound a bleak forecast for the rescue of the trapped workers. Questions arise if in this 48 hours the National Highways Authority of India, National Disaster Response Force, and Search and Rescue Teams have not supplied food water, toilet essentials and oxygen supply to the stranded workers?

We cannot afford to sacrifice precious lives for want of incorporation of best practices. Transparency is after all the other side of a corruption free governance model.

Comments

  1. R. S. ShekhawatFebruary 24, 2025 at 12:59 AM

    Very well said.Innocent are paying cost by giving their lives in absence of adequate rescue protocols o ground.The gover.ents oftern blind eye to the necessity of safety measures.

    ReplyDelete

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