More than 33 hours after a sanitation worker was swept away while cleaning the Amayizhanchan canal in Thiruvananthapuram, search and rescue operations are still continuing.

Around 100 personnel from the state fire and rescue services and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are engaged in the rescue operations. Two Bandicoot robots, used to clean clogged drains, are also being deployed to remove the large amounts of waste. The feed from the robot’s camera revealed a massive pile of plastic and other waste material inside the drain, necessitating the removal of the garbage before continuing the daunting task.

The sanitation worker, Joy (42) from Marayamuttom was swept away at 11 am on Saturday in the waste-filled Amayizhanjan canal when he entered the canal, which passes through the railway property under the rails. Even though other workers accompanying him tried to give him a rope, he could not hold it. It is suspected that he got stuck in a garbage pile. It remains unknown whether the person is trapped or washed away to another point in the water stretch .The waste pile, which has formed like a rock inside the canal, has been hindering the search operations.

On Sunday, scuba divers could only access around 40 metres of the 170-metre tunnel underneath the railway tracks. The huge pile of waste and poor lighting hindered the rescue efforts. Efforts were also being made to access the drain from the other side of the canal. During the search on Sunday using a robotic camera inside the tunnel, a foot-like object was found. On verification, the scuba team confirmed it was not a human body part.

As there is no promising signal, the authorities have also sought the services of the Navy in the search and safety operations. State Revenue Minister K Rajan informed that the Navy’s highly-skilled diving team will participate in the search operations. The team will reach the capital from Kochi in the evening.

General Education Minister V Sivankutty, Mayor Arya Rajendran, Thiruvananthapuram District Collector Geromic George, and other officials are at the site to oversee the rescue efforts.

Opposition leader VD Satheesan blamed the government for the canal mishap, saying that it happened due to the failure of the government to carry out the pre-monsoon sanitation works in a time-bound manner.

“When the Opposition pointed out in the assembly that the government has failed to carry out the pre-monsoon sanitation works, the Local Self-Governance Minister ridiculed us. We would like to ask the minister what he was doing all these days,” Satheesan told media persons in Kochi.

“It is said that there was a dispute between the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation and the Railways over cleaning the canal. If at all there was such a dispute, wasn’t the government supposed to resolve it? The government should have taken the initiative to call the two parties for a discussion and find a solution. The government did not do that,” he added.

Thiruvananthapuram MP Sashi Tharoor blamed the City Corporation for the mishap. Thiruvananthapuram Corporation’s “incompetence and irresponsibility” resulted in the mishap, he said.

The municipal authorities are fully responsible for the timely maintenance and cleaning of canals, Tharoor added.