World

Toll at the Chamoli tunnel reaches eight as pumping brings the water down

By Staff Writer  |  16 August 2026

Twenty two workers were inside when water and debris came in on Thursday evening. Uttarakhand's chief minister has ordered a magisterial inquiry into how it happened.

The number of men known to have died in the tunnel at Pipalkoti, in the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, reached eight on Saturday when rescue teams brought out one more body. Two of the twenty two who were inside are still unaccounted for.

Water and debris came into the under construction tunnel at about half past six on Thursday evening, at a hydropower project at Mayapur near Pipalkoti. The tunnel is being built by Hindustan Construction Company for THDC India. The district magistrate, Gaurav Kumar, said the administration was alerted at once and teams were sent to the site.

Water was the whole problem

What has governed the operation since is the water standing inside. Vivek Prakash, additional district magistrate for Chamoli, said teams had been at the site since the evening of the accident and had worked through the first night without being able to reach the men.

Pumps were then borrowed from two power companies, THDC and NTPC, and the level fell far enough for teams to work further in. One body was recovered on Saturday and taken to hospital by ambulance. Prakash said the search was continuing for the other two.

He named the agencies at the site as the National Disaster Response Force, the State Disaster Response Force, the army and paramilitary units, with the district administration and the police as the first responders, and said staff from the contractor and the developer had helped in the recovery. Weather, he said, remained the difficulty, because the level inside keeps rising.

Twenty two men were inside when the water came in. Eight are known to have died and two are still being searched for. The chief minister's statement on Saturday morning referred to three yet to be reached, and it predates the recovery announced later the same day.

An inquiry, and what it has to find

Pushkar Singh Dhami, chief minister of Uttarakhand, said a sudden surge of debris and water had trapped the men on duty, and ordered a magisterial inquiry to establish the facts and what precautions should follow.

The safety of the personnel working on any construction project must be our top priority, at any cost. I issued instructions to this effect yesterday

Pushkar Singh Dhami, Chief Minister of Uttarakhand

The commander of the National Disaster Response Force team at the site, Amrit Lal Meena, said a landslide of some kind near the Birhi river had sent the surge of water and debris into the tunnel while the shift was working.

That is the point the inquiry will have to reach. A working face below a hillside in monsoon season is exposed to whatever the ground above it releases, and the question for any such scheme is what warning the tunnel had, how quickly the men inside could have been told, and what stood between the portal and a river carrying a landslide.

Where it stands

Sludge and standing water are still restricting movement and making a full search of the tunnel difficult. Nothing has been published about the cause beyond the account of a surge from the direction of the river, and the inquiry the chief minister has ordered has not reported.

Twenty two men went into that tunnel on Thursday evening. Eight are known to have died, and two of them are still in there.