One more body was recovered from a tunnel at the NTPC's flood-ravaged Tapovan-Vishnugad project site on Sunday, taking the toll in the disaster that struck Chamoli district a fortnight ago to 68. The body recovered from the intake adit tunnel was identified as that of 27-year-old Sunil Bakhla from Lohardaga district in Jharkhand, official sources said.
It takes the number of bodies pulled out of this tunnel so far to 14. There is another tunnel in which around 35 people are suspected to have been trapped, but rescuers have not been able to reach it till now, said officials, adding the route to the second tunnel goes via this intake adit tunnel.
Five bodies were recovered from the Tapovan barrage site on Saturday. They were identified as those of Amrit Kumar and Jyotish Wasla of Jharkhand, Munna Kumar Singh of Bihar, Jalal of Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh and Jivan Singh of Kalsi in Dehradun district.
Chamoli District Magistrate Swati S Bhadauria on Sunday pressed into service additional excavators at the Tapovan barrage site to speed up search operations. The toll in the calamity that hit the Rishiganga valley on February 7 has now risen to 68 while 136 people are still missing.
The NTPC's Tapovan-Vishnugad hydel project had been extensively damaged in the flash flood while the Rishiganga hydel project was totally destructed.
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