Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, May 22: The Centre has constituted a committee to probe the tunnel collapse tragedy in Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K) Ramban district on Thursday night, which killed ten labourers.
On Saturday and Sunday, an expert panel inspected the site, and it was ordered to produce a full report on the occurrence, the causes of such recurrent mishaps, and remedial steps within 10 days.
Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari ordered the formation of the committee.
JT Shahu, professor of civil engineering at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, chairs the three-member panel, which also includes a chief engineer from the Office of the Director General of Border Roads and Vinod Shukla, MD of FGS Consultants and a member of MoRTH’s expert committee on tunnels.
On Sunday, three days after the incident, the MoRTH published a statement claiming it was still unclear whether the incident was caused by the work being done or by natural causes.
While two workers were rescued and taken to the hospital, the bodies of ten workers who had been trapped beneath the rubble since Thursday night had been pulled out by Saturday evening. Intermittent shooting stones and bad weather impeded rescue efforts, causing the operation to be delayed, according to the ministry.
Notably, due to its delicate geology, the Ramban Banihal portion between Digdole and Khooni Nallah is prone to regular landslides/shooting stones. The Centre is building tunnels/viaducts in the Ramban-Banihal segment under three packages, taking into account the strategic necessity of preserving all-weather access to Srinagar and the problems of assuring the stability of hill slopes on the existing alignment. The twin-tube tunnel work to establish a four-lane traffic corridor on the Jammu-Srinagar route from Digdole to Panthyal began on February 1 this year.
