(Silkyara Tunnel) Exhausted, but beaming, the 41 workers rescued Tuesday by Indian rescuers after being trapped for 17 days in the collapsed Silkyara tunnel were given a hero’s welcome with garlands of flowers by a crowd cheering.
“Hail, Mother India!” “, exclaimed the latter as night fell, applauding as the news spread of the safe exit of all these men trapped since the collapse of part of the structure under construction in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, on November 12.
They were extricated from the tunnel after being pulled on stretchers specially equipped with wheels through the 57 meters of a steel pipe, the last section of which was laid during the day.
At the same time, ambulances left the entrance to the site where, after repeated setbacks, military engineers and miners worked manually drilling through the rock and rubble to clear the final section and reach the trapped workers.
PHOTO SAJJAD HUSSAIN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Before being able to hug their families, they were greeted by state representatives.
“I am totally relieved and happy that 41 workers trapped in the collapse of the Silkyara tunnel have been rescued,” said Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, who praised “well-coordinated efforts” having enabled “one of the the most important rescue operations in recent years.
“Now it’s party time!” »
Their relatives expressed joy, relieved after previous hopes of reaching the men were repeatedly dashed by falling debris and the breakdown of several drilling machines.
“We thank God and the rescuers who worked hard to save them,” Naiyer Ahmad, whose younger brother Sabah Ahmad was among the workers and who had been camping at the site in freezing cold for more than two weeks, told AFP .
Sudhansu Shah, who was also waiting there for the release of his younger brother Sonu Shah, confided that he and his family had started celebrating the end of his ordeal. “We are really hopeful and happy.”
“We are extremely happy, no words can express it,” exclaimed Musarrat Jahan, the wife of one of the rescued men, by telephone in the state of Bihar by AFP. .
“Not only did my husband have a new life, but we also had a new life. We will never forget it.”
PHOTO PROVIDED BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Their “courage and patience inspire everyone,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reacted in a press release, speaking of the 41 survivors.
“Patience, hard work and faith have won,” said the head of the government of the state of Uttarakhand, Pushkar Singh Dhami, referring to “the prayers of tens of millions of compatriots and the tireless work of all rescue teams.
The state of health of the rescued workers is “good”, he added.
Guriya Devi, the wife of one of them, Sushil Kumar, said she had been praying since the tunnel collapsed.
“We’ve been through some horrible times and sometimes we’ve lost hope, but ultimately it’s time to celebrate,” she said.
A titanic job
Teams of three people took turns digging and inserting the last parts of the steel tube, just wide enough to allow one man to pass through and allow workers to evacuate.
When one of the rescuers was digging, a second removed the debris by hand and the third placed it in a cart reaching the exit, explained Tuesday Rajput Rai, a drilling expert, quoted by the Press Trust of India agency.
The men also had to cut through a tangle of metal rods that was obstructing their progress.
Following the collapse of the tunnel, rescue operations were complicated and slowed down by falling debris and successive breakdowns of the drills, crucial machines for rescuing the workers.
PHOTO ASSOCIATED PRESS
Another vertical borehole had also been started from the top of the wooded hill overlooking the tunnel, a complex maneuver above the men in an area that had already suffered a collapse.
The men had survived for more than two weeks thanks to the delivery of air, food, water and electricity via a conduit through which an endoscopic camera had been inserted. This camera allowed their families to see them last week, for the first time.
Indian billionaire Anand Mahindra paid tribute to the men who squeezed through the narrow steel pipe to manually clear the rocks. “It’s a comforting reminder that ultimately heroism is most often about individual effort and sacrifice,” he wrote on the social network X.
The workers were trapped in an area inside the tunnel measuring 8.5 meters high and some two kilometers long.
The Silkyara tunnel is part of the Char Dham highway project, dear to Narendra Modi, designed to improve connections with four of the most important Hindu sites in the country and also with the border regions of China.