First 18 workers rescued from collapsed tunnel in India after 17 days
The first 18 workers have been rescued from a tunnel in India after being trapped for more than two weeks.
Indian network NDTV reported that all 41 workers should be released within two hours.
The workers got trapped on 12 November, when a landslide caused a portion of the 2.8-mile tunnel they were building in Uttarakhand state to collapse about 200m (650ft) from the entrance.
Having survived on food and oxygen supplied through narrow steel pipes, the workers will be taken to a makeshift health centre inside the 13m (42ft) wide tunnel, officials said.
One of the trapped workers is checked out after he was rescued from the collapsed tunnel site
(via REUTERS)
“Soon all the laborers brothers will be taken out,” Pushkar Singh Dhami, top official in Uttarakhand state, posted on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Kirti Panwar, a state government spokesperson, said about a dozen men had worked overnight to dig through rocks and debris, taking turns to drill using hand-held drilling tools and clearing out the muck in what he said was the final stretch of the rescue operation.
Rescuers resorted to manual digging after the drilling machine broke down irreparably on Friday while drilling horizontally from the front because of the mountainous terrain of Uttarakhand.
The machine bored through about 47m (nearly 154ft) out of approximately the 57-60m (nearly 187-196ft) needed, before rescuers started to work by hand to create a passageway to evacuate the trapped workers.
More to follow…
