Body of Second Trapped Worker Found in SLBC Tunnel Collapse
The body of one of the seven people trapped in the collapsed SLBC project tunnel in Hyderabad for over a month was found on Tuesday. This marks the second body recovered from the site so far.
Collector Badavath Santhosh informed reporters that the body was discovered in the morning. It has been tentatively identified as Manoj Kumar, a project engineer from Uttar Pradesh. The body was sent to a government hospital for postmortem and other necessary procedures.
The Collector stated that the deceased’s family members would be informed, and the mortal remains would be sent to their native place. As per Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s instructions, the family will receive an ex gratia payment of ₹25 lakh.
The Chief Minister has ordered that the search operation must continue until all trapped individuals are found. To speed up the process, four excavators have been deployed inside the tunnel.
A rescue official mentioned that the body was discovered after search personnel noticed a foul smell in the early hours of Tuesday. Surprisingly, it was recovered from a different location than those suggested by sniffer dogs during earlier search efforts.
The tunnel collapse occurred on February 22, trapping eight individuals, including engineers and laborers. The trapped workers include Manoj Kumar (UP), Sri Niwas (UP), Sunny Singh (J&K), Gurpreet Singh (Punjab), and Sandeep Sahu, Jegta Xess, Santosh Sahu, and Anuj Sahu, all from Jharkhand. Earlier, on March 9, the body of Gurpreet Singh, a Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) operator, was recovered and handed over to his family in Punjab.
Currently, around 700 personnel from 25 state, central, and private agencies are involved in the ongoing rescue operation to locate the remaining trapped individuals.
