KABUL (BNA): Rescue teams, after days of efforts, successfully rescued 41 workers who spent 17 days trapped inside a collapsed tunnel in the Himalayas in northwestern India.
Indian media reported that the rescue operation, which lasted for 430 hours and was successful, rescued the 41 workers trapped in the Silkara tunnel in the state of Uttarakhand.
Pushkar Singh Dhami, the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand, and Nitin Gadkari, the Minister of Road Transport and Highways of the Central Government of India, were present at the scene.
The miners from the state of Uttar Pradesh had joined forces with the army to manually complete the final section of the tunnel that reached the trapped workers, and this action yielded results in the final hours of Tuesday.
The workers were trapped on November 12 when a part of a tunnel under construction (Silkara) in Uttarakhand collapsed.
During this time, it is said that the workers received food, water, light, oxygen, and medicine through a pipe, but efforts to dig a tunnel for their rescue faced technical difficulties with drilling machines, encountering obstacles and challenges.
Despite government guidelines recommending emergency exits for tunnels longer than 1.5 kilometers, there was no escape route.
The rescued individuals have been transferred to the hospital for medical examination and essential treatments.
Bakhtar
