A landslide on Saturday evening in Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh district nearly stranded 11 workers inside a National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) power house at the mouth of a tunnel, officials said.
The officials, however, stressed that the workers were safe inside the Dhauliganga Power Station at Dharchula, which has sufficient amenities, and that their presence was required there in order to maintain power generation.
Eight other workers have already been evacuated through a ventilation shaft that is wide enough to allow people to move, said Superintendent of Police Rekha Yadav.
“We have taken out eight workers and are working to clear the debris,” she said. “However, the power house requires a team of nine people at the site for work at the house, so if the situation deteriorates, we will evacuate all of them. Currently, the NHPC has maintained that the workers can be swapped if needed.”
The power house sits under a hill and has its entry point in a tunnel opening to the road. “Machines have been deployed to remove the boulders that block the tunnel,” Yadav said.
Uttarakhand has been reeling under heavy rain this monsoon which has caused multiple landslides and damaged infrastructure including highways.
Pithoragarh District Magistrate Vinod Goswami ruled out any similarities with the Silkyara tunnel collapse. He said power generation was incumbent upon the presence of workers, but their safety would not be jeopardised.
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The local police, the sub-district magistrate, the tehsildar, and personnel of the SDRF and BRO are at the site, Yadav said.
The Dhauliganga Power Station is a run-of-the-river scheme on the Dhauliganga river. The power station was commissioned in 2005 and generates 280 megawatts of electricity. It supplies power to Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, J&K, Punjab, Rajasthan and Chandigarh, according to the corporation.
Ever since Saturday, multiple landslides have hit the area, hindering the debris-clearing work.
Goswami said 19 workers were originally at work when the landslide struck, but no one was injured. “Currently, debris has been cleared from the emergency shaft, and eight have been evacuated. Operations are underway to evacuate the remaining workers,” he said.
