Uttarakhand Silkyara tunnel: All 41 workers successfully rescued, rescuers over the moon
trapped in Uttarakhand's Silkyara tunnel were evacuated on Tuesday evening. The ambulances waiting at the site took them to a community health centre where a special 41-bed ward was set up for them. As the youngest of the workers, who was the first to be evacuated, emerged out of the tunnel, he was greeted with hugs and cheers as a sense of relief and hope spread.
An ambulance with the first of the 41 workers left the mouth of the tunnel at around 8 pm, about an hour after a group of rat-hole mining experts dug through the last stretch of the rubble.
«Evacuation began with the youngest of the workers. They were all fit and crawled out of the passage on their own,» said Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Dhami, who also announced ₹1 lakh to be given to each rescued worker. Family members of the labourers, who have come from different states, were also brought to the tunnel site.
The workers were given a quick medical checkup as they emerged out of the steel pipe after a multi-agency rescue operation that hovered between hope and despair for over 17 days.
No one was critical.
Eye-witnesses said every five minutes one person was brought out of the tunnel on a wheeled stretcher through the pipe.
The rescuers heaved a sigh of relief after getting a message from the trapped labourers through the communication system set up at the site about hearing of drilling sound.
«The remaining two meters is a very short distance. The miners continued to encounter concrete cement during the manual drilling exercise, and it took time for them to cut the same,» a source, who is camping at the site, said.
In the pipe, only two miners could enter to carry out drilling at one time.
