Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: After a 17-day effort by Indian agencies and international experts, 41 workers trapped in an under-construction Silkyara tunnel in the Himalayas were rescued on November 28 night.
The workers crawled out of a passageway dug through the rubble that separated them from the outside world. Their family members greeted them with hugs and tears before an ambulance whisked the workers away. Many of them had traveled many miles and camped outside the tunnel through the course of the operation.
The workers were hired by a Hyderabad-based engineering firm contracted by the Indian government to construct the 2.8-mile tunnel at Silkyara, a remote village at the foothills of the Himalayas. On Nov. 12, a landslide collapsed a portion of the tunnel, trapping the workers behind nearly 200 feet of rubble.
Within days, the rescuers had inserted a 6-inch pipe and established communication with the workers. This pipe was used to supply food, medicines and other essentials on the other side. Family members would use it to speak to them once a day to help raise their spirits.
Simultaneously, the rescuers tried to drill through the debris and insert bigger pipes that the workers could crawl through. This operation had to be stopped several times after rocks, stones and metal inside the debris brought drilling machines to a halt.
