25 dead in India tunnel disaster as more bodies recovered | World News

The bodies of the remaining 13 workers trapped inside a collapsed hydropower tunnel in India have been found – as the death toll rises to 25.

Rescue efforts have continued after a gas explosion on Monday at the 500-megawatt Teesta Hydroelectric Project about 25 miles from the state capital Gangtok.

A build-up of methane gas triggered the explosion, trapping dozens of workers underground, with rescue efforts being hampered by the toxic gas inside, officials said.

The government said a high-level committee would investigate the disaster and recommend safeguards to prevent such accidents in the future.

Following the recovery of all the missing employees, teams carried out a final inspection of the tunnel, the state government of Sikkim said in a statement, with rescue operations ending on Thursday.

Construction accidents are not uncommon in India, where rapid infrastructure growth often collides with fragile geology, construction lapses, extreme weather and safety standards.

The Teesta River basin, where the hydropower project is being built, lies in a seismically active region marked by young, fragile rock formations riddled with fractures and underground pockets that can trap ancient gases.

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The region is prone to seismic activity and unpredictable underground conditions, making tunnel projects especially risky, according to experts.

In February, an explosion in a coal mine in neighbouring Meghalaya state killed 18 workers.

And in January, over a dozen miners were reportedly trapped after water from a nearby unused mine began to pour into the mine they were working in.

Before that, in 2023, the collapse of a tunnel section in Uttarakhand state trapped 41 workers for 17 days before they were rescued.