The toll from the Uttarakhand glacier burst disaster rose to 31 on Tuesday morning with the recovery of five more bodies from Raini village in Chamoli district, PTI reported quoting State Emergency Operation Centre. Around 175 people were still missing since the flash flood on Sunday.

Meanwhile, a multi-agency operation was on to rescue at least 30 workers feared trapped inside a swamped tunnel at the Tapovan power project in Chamoli, officials said. The workers have been trapped in the 12-foot-high and about 2.5-km-long “head race tunnel”,

Vivek Kumar Pandey, a spokesperson of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, told PTI that the clearing of debris and slush continued on Monday night, following which 120 metres of the tunnel entrance stretch was now clear. “ITBP personnel are waiting to enter as soon as any movement deep inside the tunnel is possible,” he added.

A senior official, however, said that the rescuers had not been able to make any contact with those stuck inside but they were hopeful for “signs of life”.

The near 1,500-metre tunnel has become the focal point of rescue operations in the disaster that appears to have been triggered after a portion of the Nanda Devi glacier possibly burst through its banks in Chamoli district on Sunday, leading to a deluge that ripped through the Alaknanda river system.

Earlier on Tuesday, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat undertook an aerial survey of the affected areas, visited the ITBP hospital in Joshimath and met the 12 workers who were rescued from a small tunnel in Tapovan power project on Sunday evening.

“About 35 people are stuck inside the tunnel...we are trying to drill and make way via rope to reach them,” Rawat told ANI. Apart from ITBP and NDRF personnel, the Army and State Disaster Response Force have also been pressed into the rescue operations.