We waited for days for call to join operation, say rat-hole miners
We waited for days for call to join operation, say rat-hole miners
The miners, employed with the Delhi-based Rockwell Enterprises, a trenchless engineering services company that clears sewer and water lines, were summoned to Silkyara on November 25 – Day 15 of the crisis – after the auger machine fell short at 47-odd metres, with 10 more metres to go. As officials said they were “hitting our heads on walls” and frustration spread through the multiple teams that had been in action for days on end, the ‘rat-hole’ experts manually cleared the last stretch.
Wakeel Hasan, owner of the company that employs the ‘rat-hole’ miners, said he was “waiting for days for a call to join the evacuation mission”. He told TOI on Wednesday: “We were bunched into four groups, each with three members. Each group worked continuously for two hours inside the narrow 800mm pipe. Once a team was done, another took over the mission. We are grateful and privileged that we got the opportunity to help the men in the tunnel.”
Officials said the miners commenced work at 3pm on Monday and successfully concluded the operation before 5pm on Tuesday.
Hasan said his team used shovels, spades, a compact drilling machine – even a pan for collecting debris – and a trolley to remove muck from the pipe. “One team member excavated, and another collected it in the pan. A third one communicated with the team outside to initiate the trolley-pulling process,” he said.
Crouching inside the 2.7-foot pipes with limited oxygen, the men, all in their early 20s, improvised by periodically soaking towels in water to cope with the extremely high temperatures.
Mohammad Arif from Khajuri Khas in Delhi said, “The last two metres were so tough. How do I explain it? We weren’t really expecting to come across iron parts in substantial quantities in the rubble. It required us to use gas cutters. And the flames from it were lapping back at us. In that tiny space, it was the hardest thing I’ve faced in my life.”
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