Bariput Hill Collapse: Body Of One JCB Operator Recovered

Jeypore: Two weeks after the tragic mishap in which two JCB operators were trapped when a portion of a hill caved in near Bariput village in Odisha’s Koraput district, the Army Engineering Team recovered the decomposed body of one operator in the afternoon on Wednesday.

The body of the deceased, identified as Ghanashyam Guru, was sent to his native village in Deogarh district after the post-mortem was conducted in the presence of the local magistrate.

Efforts are on to trace out the body of another operator Sanjay Das of Athagarh area in Cuttack district.

The two JCB operators were engaged in excavating boulders for the ongoing Telengiri Irrigation project near Bariput village when a portion of the hill suddenly caved in around 5 pm on May 31.

The district administration had started the rescue operation on June 1 with the help of the ODRAF team and the fire tenders. But as the teams failed to remove the huge boulders, the NDRF team from Mundali in Cuttack was pressed in the rescue work. However, the team failed in its mission due to the absence of heavy duty machinery to remove the huge boulders weighing up to 20-50 tonnes.

As a last resort, the administration had sought the help of the Army. Following the request, an Army Engineering Team from Ranchi arrived at Bariput on June 6 and started the rescue operation on the next day.

The team, after examining the details had suggested the district administration that the only option is to blast off the boulders to rescue the trapped operators.

The team initially had conducted control blasting after drilling the huge boulders. But as the process took much time, the team after consulting the district administration had decided to use the dynamite to blast the boulders.

After an experimental blast on Tuesday evening, the Army on Wednesday conducted a series of blasts and finally recovered the body of Guru.

The Army hopes to recover the body of another operator on Thursday.