After a tunnel collapsed in a workplace in Wilmington, 31 people were taken out of injuries, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
No worker had no account in the collapse of an 18 -foot diameter tunnel.
“The preliminary reports are that trapped workers could fight with a little effort for a pile of loose land of 12-15 'high (indeterminate length), to meet several co-workers on the other side of the collapse, and be transferred to several at the same time by a tunnel vehicle to the entrance point/access to more than five miles at a distance,” said the LAFD in a statement.
The workers were removed from the tunnel axis using an elevator system known as a bird cage, said Michael Chee, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sanitation District, to The Times on Wednesday night.
The bird's cage can transport up to eight people at the same time and is the only way inside and outside the tunnel, he said.
The accident took place in a new tunnel construction project known as Clearwater Project, which is designed to transport wastewater treated and clean from the pollution control plant to articular water to the ocean.
The boring machine of the tunnel is six miles south of the plant, where it is being used to create an 18 -foot diameter tunnel, he said. This tunnel will replace existing smaller diameter tunnels that have been in service for many decades.
Around 10 pm, 27 of the workers were being medically evaluated by the Paramedics of theFD in the place due to minor injuries.
Before the accident, the tunnel was expected to reach the beach of Royal Palms by the end of the year, at which time it would have seven miles long. The plant is the largest wastewater treatment plant owned and operated by the sanitation districts of the county of the and the only plant of the districts that discharges wastewater treated in the ocean. This is the first important incident that has taken place since the construction of the project began at the end of 2019. The work in the tunnel began in 2021.
The incident on Wednesday, in 1701 N. Figueroa St., the only point of entry to the tunnel, was reported for the first time around 8 pm more than 100 to the personnel of the Los Angeles Fire Department, including, including search and rescue teams specially trained and equipped to handle the rescues of confined space tunnels.
It was feared that workers could have been trapped up to six miles south of the access point, according to the LAFD.
