Hyderabad, March 9 (IANS) Rescue workers on Sunday – the 16th day of the operation – pulled out the body of one of the eight missing persons from the partially collapsed SLBC tunnel in Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district after the cadaver dogs from Kerala identified the spot for presence of human remains under the rubble.

The specially trained dogs identified human presence at D-2 point about 100 metres from the accident site in the final stretch of the 14-km-long tunnel.

The rescue workers carefully excavated silt at the identified location and pulled out a body on Sunday evening.

The decomposed body, identified as that of Gurupreet Singh, operator of the Tunnel Boring Machine (BTM) and hailing from Punjab, was shifted to the government hospital at Nagarkurnool for preservation.

The rescue teams continued search for the remaining seven persons in the the Srisailam Left Bank Canal (SLBC) project tunnel.

Four labourers, two engineers and two machine operators, hailing from Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir were trapped in the tunnel on February 22 when a portion of the tunnel roof collapsed during the excavation.

The seven trapped persons are Manoj Kumar and Sri Niwas (both UP), Sunny Singh (J&K), and Sandeep Sahu, Jegta Xess, Santosh Sahu and Anuj Sahu (all from Jharkhand).

Several agencies of the state and Central governments have been making efforts for the last 15 days to trace the missing persons.

The rescue teams also reportedly spotted human parts of a person six feet under the debris on Saturday night. They were carrying out digging work around the location to pull out the body.

Two cadaver dogs trained to locate missing humans and human bodies were brought from Kerala by a special helicopter three days ago.

According to officials, these dogs of the Belgian Malinois breed can detect smell even from a depth of 15 feet.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the Army, the Navy, the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), and other agencies have been making efforts to trace the missing workers.

The authorities on Saturday deployed robots for rescue operations in the tunnel as suggested by Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy during his visit to the tunnel on March 2.

Irrigation Minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy announced the deployment of robotic technology to accelerate rescue operations.

Robots equipped with cameras, infrared sensors, and robotic arms have been deployed to assess conditions and aid extraction.

The minister, who reviewed the situation with the top officials of the rescue agencies engaged in the operation, stated that rescue teams have progressed up to 13.95 km, but the last 50 metres remain highly unstable due to oxygen depletion, water seepage, and metal debris from a collapsed TBM.

Dewatering and desilting efforts continued in the tunnel. The government has consulted global tunnel experts and deployed 525 personnel, ensuring no financial constraints, with Rs 4 crore allocated for robotic systems, the minister said.

–IANS

ms/vd