Clara Harter
Los Angeles Times
(TNS)
After a tunnel collapsed at a work site in Wilmington, 31 people were extricated uninjured, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
No tunnel workers remained unaccounted for in the collapse of an 18-foot-diameter tunnel.
"Preliminary reports are that the trapped workers were able to scramble with some effort over a 12-15' tall (undetermined length) pile of loose soil, to meet several coworkers on the other side of the collapse, and be shuttled several at a time by tunnel vehicle to the entry/access point more than five miles distant," the LAFD said in a statement.
Workers were removed from the tunnel shaft using an elevator system known as a bird cage, Michael Chee, spokesperson for the L.A. County Sanitation District, told The Times late Wednesday.
The bird cage can carry up to eight people at a time and is the only way in and out of the tunnel, he said.
The accident took place in a new tunnel construction project known as the Clearwater Project, which is designed to carry treated, clean wastewater from the Joint Water Pollution Control Plant to the ocean.
The tunnel boring machine is six miles south of the plant, where it is being used to create a 25-foot-diameter tunnel, he said. This tunnel will replace existing tunnels of smaller diameter that have been in service for many decades.
Around 10 p.m., workers removed from the tunnel were being medically evaluated by LAFD paramedics at the scene.
More than 100 Los Angeles Fire Department personnel had been assigned to the incident at 1701 N. Figueroa St., the site of the only entry point to the tunnel. Among them were search and rescue teams specially trained and equipped to handle confined-space tunnel rescues.
It was feared the workers could have been trapped up to six miles south of the access point, according to the LAFD.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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