UTTARKASHI, India — The 41 construction workers who were trapped in a collapsed mountain tunnel in northern India for more than two weeks were rescued Tuesday, bringing a happy ending to a never-ending rescue mission that had gripped the country. during days.
Locals, family members and government officials erupted in joy, setting off firecrackers and shouting “Bharat Mata ki Jai” (Hindi for “Long live Mother India”) as smiling workers began to emerge from the tunnel entrance.
Officials hung flower garlands around the necks of the first rescued workers as the crowd cheered.
Nitin Gadkari, the country’s road transport and highways minister, said in a video posted on social media platform in northern India. after the 17 day ordeal.
“This was a well-coordinated effort by multiple agencies, marking one of the largest rescue operations in recent years,” Gadkari said.
No one was seriously injured or killed when the tunnel collapsed early on the morning of November 12.
Workers following their rescue from inside the under-construction Silkyara tunnel on the Brahmakal Yamunotri national highway in Uttarkashi, India. “This was a well-coordinated multi-agency effort, marking one of the largest rescue operations in recent years,” said Nitin Gadkari, the country’s road transport and highways minister. UTTARAKHAND INFORMATION DEPARTMENT BROCHURE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Workers were finishing their shifts and many were probably looking forward to celebrating Diwali, the festival of lights, that day.
From the beginning of their ordeal, the workers received food, water and oxygen through pipes, and emerged healthy, authorities said. They were extracted one by one on a wheeled stretcher that was dragged through a roughly three-foot-wide tunnel of welded tubes that teams had pushed through collapsed dirt and rock.
Before appearing before the cameras and the crowd and being transported in ambulances, each worker underwent a check-up at a makeshift medical camp at the entrance to the tunnel.
Devender, a rescuer who gave only his first name, told New Delhi television that “the trapped workers were very happy when they saw us in the tunnel. “Some ran towards me and hugged me.”
The huge rescue mission had many on edge. The workers were trapped on Nov. 12, when a landslide caused part of the 4.5-kilometer (2.8-mile) tunnel they were building in Uttarakhand state to collapse about 200 meters (650 feet) from the tunnel. entrance.
They survived thanks to food and oxygen supplied through narrow steel tubes.
State government spokesperson Kirti Panwar said about a dozen men had worked overnight to manually dig through rocks and debris, taking turns drilling with hand-held drilling tools and clearing mud in what she said It was the final stretch of the rescue. operation.
Rescuers resorted to manual excavation after the drilling machine broke down on Friday while drilling horizontally from the front due to Uttarakhand’s mountainous terrain. The machine drilled about 47 meters (nearly 154 feet) of the roughly 57 to 60 meters (nearly 187 to 196 feet) needed, before rescuers began working by hand to create a corridor to evacuate trapped workers.
By Tuesday, they had drilled more than 58 meters (190 feet). As night fell, families of those trapped underground gathered near the crash site, anxiously waiting to see their loved ones emerge from the tunnel.
Among them was Jaimal Singh, who said he was hoping to soon see his brother Gabbar Singh, who is trapped inside. “Today even nature seems cheerful… the weather is good. Let us hope this ends soon,” he told the Press Trust of India news agency.
Rescue teams had inserted pipes into the excavated areas and welded them so workers could be carried out on wheeled stretchers.
No one was seriously injured or killed when the tunnel collapsed early on the morning of November 12. AP
On Sunday, rescuers also began creating a vertical channel with a newly replaced drill as a contingency plan.
What began as a rescue mission expected to last a few days has turned into weeks, and officials have been reluctant to give a timeline for when it might be completed.
“I just feel good. The drilling at the top of the mountain is going perfectly, in the tunnel it is going very well. I’ve never said ‘I feel good’ before,” Arnold Dix, an international tunnel expert who is helping with the rescue, told reporters at the scene Tuesday.
Most of the trapped workers are migrant workers from across the country. Many of their families have traveled to the site, where they have camped for days to receive updates on the rescue effort and in hopes of seeing their relatives soon.
Rescue teams had inserted pipes into the excavated areas and welded them so workers could be carried out on wheeled stretchers. AP They survived on food and oxygen supplied through narrow steel tubes. Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR) Uttarakhand/AFP via Getty Images
As the operation unfolded, trapped workers received hot food through a 15-centimeter (6-inch) tube after days of surviving only on dry food sent through a narrower tube. They were receiving oxygen through a separate line and more than a dozen doctors, including psychiatrists, were on site monitoring their health.
The tunnel that workers were building was designed as part of the all-weather Chardham Highway, which will connect several Hindu pilgrimage sites. Some experts say the project, a flagship initiative of the federal government, will exacerbate fragile conditions in the high Himalayas, where several cities are built on landslide debris.
A large number of pilgrims and tourists visit the numerous Hindu temples of Uttarakhand, and the number is increasing over the years due to continuous construction of buildings and roads.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn