Hyderabad, Feb 24: Two teams of construction major Larsen & Toubro with advanced equipment on Monday joined the operation to rescue eight trapped workers from an under-construction tunnel, a portion of which collapsed on February 22 in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district.

L&T, which has the experience of the rescue operation in Uttarakhand, has brought endoscopic and robotic cameras

Nagarkurnool district Collector Badavath Santosh said the rescue teams had to cover a distance of another 40 meters to reach the point where the roof had collapsed. This stretch of the tunnel is filled with muck, making further advance of the rescue operations difficult.

The L&T teams will deploy endoscopic and robotic cameras to sift through the muck and communicate with survivors, if any, at the fag end of the tunnel.

The teams used the same equipment for rescue operations after the Silkyara Bend-Barkot tunnel collapsed in Uttarakhand, where 41 workers trapped inside were rescued after 17 days in 2023.

Multiple teams from the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the Army and other agencies continued rescue operation on Monday.

More than 48 hours after a portion of the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) tunnel collapsed, the fate of eight men, including two engineers and two machine operators, was not known.

Teams of the Indian Air Force and Navy are also reaching Srisailam in three helicopters from Visakhapatnam to join the rescue operation.

NDRF personnel managed to reach the tunnel boring machine at the 14th-km point but heaps of debris hampered the search operation.

The tunnel remained flooded with water for about two kilometres, making the rescue task more challenging for more than 300 rescue workers. Rescue teams deployed heavy motors for dewatering.

The operation encountered more problems as the loco train to move into the tunnel broke down at the 11th kilometre. Efforts were on to fix the problem.

NDRF, Army, Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) and Hyderabad Disaster Response and Asset Protection Agency (HYDRAA) were making intensive efforts to dewater and desilt the tunnel.

Ministers Uttam Kumar Reddy and Jupally Krishna Rao, who were supervising the rescue operation, went into the tunnel by a loco train on Sunday. Jupally Krishna Rao told media persons after coming out of the tunnel that the chances of finding the trapped persons alive were remote.

Irrigation Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy said all efforts were being made to pull out the trapped men safely. He said the possibility of reaching the spot by digging the tunnel from the top was being explored.

Two workers were injured and eight others were trapped when a portion of the tunnel was being dug as part of SLBC collapsed near Domalapenta.

A total of 50 persons were working on the left-side tunnel when the roof collapsed for three meters. The accident occurred at the 14th km point.

While 42 workers came out of the tunnel, the remaining eight were trapped. Those trapped include two engineers and two machine operators.

The trapped men are from Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir.

Project manager Manoj Kumar (Uttar Pradesh), Machine engineer Srinivas (Uttar Pradesh) and machine operators Sunny Singh (J&K) and Gurpreet Singh (Punjab) are among those trapped. The four workers from Jharkhand are Sandeep Sahu, Santosh Sahu, Anju Sahu and Jagta Khes.

Mumbai: A massive fire broke out in Mumbai’s Marine Lines on Saturday. The blaze rupted on the top floor of a residential building, Marine Chambers. The building is located near Gol Masjid.

The fire broke out at around 12.30 pm on Saturday. After receiving information, several fire tenders reached the spot. Senior officials also rushed to the place where the blaze erupted.

Visuals of the fire also surfaced online. In the video, an envelope of black smoke could seen billowing out of the building. This led to panic among the locals.

A firefighting operation is currently underway.

The reason for the blaze is not yet known. There are no reports of any injuries.

Mumbai: Astronomers worldwide are closely monitoring Asteroid 2024 YR4, dubbed the “city killer,” since its discovery in December last year. The asteroid, estimated to be between 130 to 300 feet wide, about the size of a large office building, currently has a 1.5% (or 1 in 67) chance of striking Earth during a close flyby on December 22, 2032. Given that the impact probability exceeds the critical threshold of 1%, global space agencies, including NASA, are keeping a vigilant eye on its trajectory.

A simulation of the potential impact corridor of Asteroid 2024 YR4, based on NASA’s assessment and reported by Scientific American, suggests a path stretching from the eastern Pacific Ocean to South Asia. The corridor includes densely populated cities such as Bogotá (Colombia), Lagos (Nigeria), and Mumbai (India). There is also a very slim chance that the asteroid might hit the Moon.

If the asteroid collides with Earth, the consequences could be devastating. Whether it disintegrates in the atmosphere or impacts the surface, the immediate effects could resemble a hydrogen bomb explosion, potentially annihilating any city in its path.

However, scientists remain optimistic as the odds of a collision are decreasing daily. Bruce Betts, Chief Scientist at the Planetary Society, told the New York Post that the probability of impact might drop to zero within the next few months or years, similar to the trajectory of the asteroid Apophis. “At some point in the next months to few years, the probability will go to zero,” Betts said.

Efforts Made To Ascertain Exact Path Of Asteroid

Despite this optimism, astronomers are not taking any chances. NASA is collaborating with international counterparts, including the China National Space Administration (CNSA), Roscosmos (Russia) and the European Space Agency (ESA), to refine the asteroid’s predicted path.

A dedicated team of astronomers plans to use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to obtain more precise estimates of the asteroid’s size and trajectory. Observations are scheduled for early March and again in early May, just before the asteroid moves out of sight until its orbit brings it back near Earth in 2028.