The death toll in the Himalayas’ glacier burst in India has now reached 26.
Uttarakhand Director General of Police Ashok Kumar, in a tweet last February 8, Monday, said these are the number of dead bodies that were recovered in Tapovan, one of the tunnels where the glacier had a huge impact that trapped people in the tunnel.
Rescue squads were deployed and now focused on drilling their way through a 2.5 km (1.5 miles) tunnel at the Tapovan Vishnugad hydropower project site that NTPC was building downstream and where about 35 workers were believed trapped.
The official said there are still 171 people unaccounted for as of 8p.m. on Monday.
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Most of those who were missing were people working on the said two projects.
On February 7, Sunday, there were 12 people who were rescued from another, much smaller, tunnel.
A glacier broker away on Sunday causing a violent surge of water, rock, and dust below Nanda Devi, India’s second-highest peak, swept away the small Rishiganga hydroelectric project and damaged the bigger one in Tapovan.
There were more than 2,000 members of the military, paramilitary groups, and police that have taken part in the search and rescue operations. (ES)
