More than 24 hours after a sanitation worker went missing in the Amayizhanjan canal, search and rescue operations are still continuing. On Jyly 14 morning, the rescue efforts were restarted with a 30-member National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) team joining the Fire and Rescue Services personnel who have been coordinating the operations.
Joy (42), the sanitation worker who went missing, was put on the job by a private agency which was contracted by the Railways to clean a section of the Amayizhanjan Canal, which passes through the railway property under the rails. A group of three workers have been involved in the work for the past 6 days to clean up a narrow, around 140-metre long section of the canal. The waste accumulated in the canal over a long time has been hampering the rescue efforts.
Though a scuba team had made efforts to go into the canal, they could not progress beyond 70 metres. Since July 13 evening, the rescue efforts have been focussed around a manhole inside the Railway Station, in between two rail lines, which opens into the canal. Two Bandicoot robots, used to clean clogged drains, are also being deployed to remove the large amounts of waste.
Minister V. Sivankutty, Mayor Arya Rajendran, Thiruvananthapuram District Collector Geromic George and other officials are at the site to oversee the rescue efforts. Mr. Sivankutty said that the Railways has been asked to provide a route map of the tunnel, which has a few sub-tunnels too.
A notice issued by the Corporation to the Regional Manager, Southern Railway division on June 19 said that work on the canal under the Major Irrigation department remains pending at the section which passes under the rails, near the Parcel office and near the Power House Road. Mayor Arya Rajendran said that the Corporation has over the past few months sent reminders to the Railways to clean this section. The sanitation worker went missing while carrying out this work.
