All 41 construction workers trapped in a collapsed road tunnel in India have been rescued after 17 gruelling days stuck underground.
The workers were seen ‘in the safety tunnel inside the Silkyara tunnel’ and ‘will be evacuated soon in [an] ambulance’, local media reported just after 3pm GMT today, November 28, 2023.
Emotional footage from the Silkyara tunnel showed the moment rescue teams began pulling exhausted labourers to safety after nearly three weeks of desperate efforts.
They finally made their breakthrough on Tuesday, hauling the workers on stretchers through a 187ft pipe built hurriedly through the Himalayas.
There were scenes of jubilation as the first worker reached the surface, with handshakes, pats on the back and smiles all round as the group celebrated.
It was no easy victory, with skilled miners and military engineers falling back on banned practices, working by hand after masonry drills and digging machines broke down.
Dozens of emergency vehicles were pictured around the scene of the tunnel collapse today as onlookers eagerly awaited news on the rescue mission.
Teams of doctors were joined by local villagers and even a man carrying flower garlands to welcome the first survivors as they emerged.
By nightfall, the tunnel was lit up by teams preparing to treat the construction workers for any health problems after more than two weeks stuck underground.
It was expected to take between five and seven minutes to haul each worker through the tunnel to safety after the first was successfully pulled through – nearly three and a half hours in total.
In video footage shared this afternoon, a group of men wearing helmets and high-vis clothing were pictured standing around the new pipe, some pulling on a rope.
The camera panned to show a team involved in the mission, a large collaboration of local and national disaster response forces, police and military engineers.
The group toiled to pull the first man through the tunnel with a toolkit on one of the bespoke stretchers, helping him to his feet after 17 long days trapped in the rubble.
He emerged from the hole and stood up to shake the hand of his saviours, before one entered the tunnel to check for anything left behind.
The sense of relief was palpable after more than two weeks of forlorn attempts to cut nearly 200ft through the debris with American-made diggers and large drills.
Tools broke down and rescue teams were forced to fall back on banned hand-mining practices to break down the rubble locking the men in an unfinished tunnel.
The 41 labourers had been working on the Barkot tunnel in northern India on November 12 when a rockfall sealed their way out.
With 0.3 miles of unfinished tunnel on the other side, the team was helpless without sustained rescue efforts drilling through huge mounds of rubble to reach them.
Teams were seen earlier today on social media smiling and flashing victory signs as the drilling finally ended, a huge human-sized pipe forced through the debris.
‘The work of laying pipes in the tunnel to take out the workers has been completed,’ chief minister of Uttarakhand state Pushkar Singh Dhami said, adding they would be brought out of the tunnel ‘soon’.
‘We are thankful to God and the rescuers who worked hard to save them,’ Naiyer Ahmad told AFP, whose younger brother Sabah Ahmad is among the trapped workers, and who has been camping at the site for over two weeks.
Sudhansu Shah, who has also been camping out since shortly after the November 12 tunnel collapse waiting for his younger brother Sonu Shah, said relatives had started to celebrate. ‘We are really hopeful and happy,’ he said.
Dhami praised the ‘prayers of tens of millions of countrymen and the tireless work of all the rescue teams engaged in the rescue operation’.
The health of the workers was ‘fine’, but a team of medics in a field hospital were ready on site as soon as they were brought out, he added.
The workers were seen alive for the first time last week, peering into the lens of an endoscopic camera sent by rescuers down a thin pipe through which air, food, water and electricity are being delivered.
Though trapped, the workers have plenty of space in the tunnel, with the area inside 8.5 metres high and stretching over a mile in length.
Arnold Dix, president of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association, who is advising the rescue on site, told reporters the men were in good spirits.
Previous hopes of reaching the trapped workers had been dashed by falling debris and the breakdown of multiple drilling machines.
A giant earth-boring machine was snapped when it ran into metal girders and construction vehicles buried in the rubble, and several high powered drills had also failed.
Rescuers subsequently brought in a superheated plasma cutter to slice through metal rods that repeatedly impeded progress, before miners worked by hand to move huge amounts of earth and create a hole through which their colleagues could force the steel rescue pipe.
Rajput Rai, a drilling expert, told the Press Trust of India that three-person teams were taking turns working at the rock face – while one worker drilled, a second scooped up the rubble by hand, and the third placed it on a wheeled trolley to be pulled out, Rai said, according to PTI.
Indian billionaire Anand Mahindra paid tribute to the men at the rockface who squeezed into the narrow pipe to clear the rocks by hand.
‘After all the sophisticated drilling equipment, it’s the humble ‘rathole miners’ who make the vital breakthrough,’ Mahindra said on X, formerly Twitter.
‘It’s a heartwarming reminder that at the end of the day, heroism is most often a case of individual effort and sacrifice.’
Ambulances moved towards the mouth of the tunnel entrance this morning, preparing to receive the men.
The collapsed tunnel, located in the Uttarkashi district of the Indian Himalayas, is part of an ambitious project to enhance connectivity to renowned pilgrimage sites in the mountainous state of Uttarakhand, home to some of the holiest sites for Hindus.
The tunnel, a key component of the highway plan, is intended to provide year-round access to Yamunotri – a pivotal Hindu pilgrimage site – by cutting the travel distance between Uttarkashi and Yamunotri town by 16 miles and providing much needed cover from the elements.
The project received the green light from the federal government in 2018, though some environmental experts cried foul over the potential damage the project could cause to the region’s fragile ecology.
Those trapped inside the collapsed tunnel have survived thanks to their rescuers who have sent a stead supply of oxygen, water and food – mostly chickpeas, dried fruits, almonds and puffed rice – through a small pipe, along with medicines to relieve headaches and nausea.
‘The food items are providing them enough calories,’ RCS Pawar, chief medical officer of Uttarkashi district, told Reuters.