Bariput Hill Collapse: Army To Use Dynamite To Remove Boulders

Jeypore: The Army has decided to use dynamite to recover bodies of the two JCB operators trapped under a heap of boulders on the hill near Bariput village in Odisha’s Koraput district.

This was decided at a meeting of the Revenue Divisional Commissioner (RDC), Southern Division, Temjen Wapang Ao, Inspector General IG), Fire Services and Home Guard, Rajesh Kumar, senior officials of Army engineering team, Koraput collector K Sudarshan Chakraborty and the Superintendent of Police (SP) at the district headquarters on Tuesday evening.

The Army, which had conducted experimental blasting of the boulders using dynamite on Tuesday evening, will conduct a series of blasts on Wednesday to recover the bodies of the two operators.

Though they had located the body of an operator a couple of days ago, heavy rains made it difficult to bring it out.

The two JCB operators, Ghanashyam Guru of Deogarh and Sanjay Dash of Athagarh area in Cuttack district, were engaged in excavating boulders for the ongoing Telengiri Irrigation project near Bariput village when a portion of the hill caved in on May 31.