NEW DELHI, May 21 (KUNA) -- Indian rescue teams recovered nine more bodies on Saturday from the scene of a landslide outside the mouth of an under construction tunnel in Ramban district of Jammu and Kashmir taking the death toll to 10.
The Press Trest of India said quoting Indian officials that the rescue work was completed after two days of hectic operations and recovering bodies of all the ten workers trapped inside an under construction tunnel at Khooni Nallah area in Ramban on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway after a landslide hit the mouth of the tunnel on Thursday evening.
The rescue team had found three workers alive and admitted to hospital on the same day and recovered one body on Friday.
"Bodies of all the missing workers were recovered from the scene of the landslide outside the mouth of adit tunnel during the day-long hectic search by the rescuers. While one body was recovered on Friday and three rescued, nine more bodies were found on Saturday," the agency quoted Ramban Deputy Commissioner Mussarat Islam as saying.
As per earlier reports a portion of the under-construction tunnel at Khooni Nallah collapsed soon after its work started.
However, the National Highway Authority of India clarified later that a landslide had hit the mouth of the tunnel.
The rescue team spend several hours to complete the operation as the labourers were crushed to death by the falling boulders. Bodies of all the doomed workers were taken to a government hospital for identification and other legal formalities, the official stated. (end) atk