The Ramban DC Mussarat Islam said that a total of five bodies have been recovered so far from the debris.
The cave-in of the under-construction tunnel triggered large-scale rescue ops by teams of police, the Army and state and national disaster response forces.
Islam further informed that of the five dead bodies recovered, three have been identified to be of people from West Bengal and that they have come in touch with the West Bengal government to do the necessary.
“A total of five bodies have been recovered so far. We're waiting for the operation to continue so that we can locate the remaining five persons. 3 dead bodies have been identified, all were from West Bengal. We're in touch with WB Admin", Islam reiterated.
Islam told ANI that incident was unexpected and that up to 17 hours of rescue work had been affected. Two heavy machines were also trapped.
Of the trapped labourers four - Jadav Roy (23), Gautam Roy (22), Sudhir Roy (31), Dipak Roy (33) and Parimal Roy (38) - are from Bengal, two - Muzaffar (38) and Israt (30) - are from J&K and one – Shiva Chouhan (26) is from Assam. Nawaraj Chowdhury (26) and Kushi Ram (25) - are from Nepal.
J&K lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha is overseeing operations from a control room.
The operation to rescue the labourers feared trapped under the debris resumed early on Saturday after a fresh landslide on Friday evening had forced the authorities to suspend the process.
The audit tunnel of T3 on the highway near Khooni Nallah in Jammu and Kashmir's Ramban district caved in at the start of the work at around 10.15 pm on Thursday, after which officials had confirmed that a labourer had died and three others were rescued.
An operation to rescue them was soon launched but had to be suspended on Friday evening due to a fresh landslide and inclement weather. Over 15 rescuers, including the Station House Officer of Ramsu police station, Nayeem-Ul-Haq, had a narrow escape during this time, according to the officials.
The debris was the result of a nearby landslide - part of a mountain in the Makerkote area collapsed and forced a temporary break in rescue operations.
The collapse was captured on camera in a video posted by news agency ANI.
