A video showing the two-km-long stretch inside the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand's Uttarkashi where 41 workers were trapped for 17 days before they were rescued on Tuesday has surfaced online. The video was made by one of the trapped workers in which he can heard motivating others.
The worker is also seen interacting with other labourers trapped in the collapsed tunnel, urging them not to lose hope.
The rescue workers managed to pull out all the 41 workers trapped in the tunnel in a multi-agency rescue operation that lasted almost 17 days.
The workers were rescued on Tuesday evening after a group of rat-hole mining experts dug through the last stretch of rubble. This was after a heavy-duty auger machine, made in the US, was deployed to the spot, but it failed several times.
{{/usCountry}}The workers were rescued on Tuesday evening after a group of rat-hole mining experts dug through the last stretch of rubble. This was after a heavy-duty auger machine, made in the US, was deployed to the spot, but it failed several times.
{{/usCountry}}The 41 workers were initially kept under medical observation at a hospital in Chinyalisaur. They were then brought to AIIMS-Rishikesh in a Chinook helicopter on Wednesday.
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On Thursday, AIIMS-Rishikesh declared all 41 workers fit to return home.
"They are physically normal and clinically stable. We have given them clearance to return home," Dr Ravikant, head of general medicine department, told PTI.
Of the 41 works, 15 are from Jharkhand, eight are from Uttar Pradesh, five each from Odisha and Bihar, three from West Bengal, two each from Uttarakhand and Assam, and one from Himachal Pradesh.
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On Tuesday, a worker had told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that they never felt scared even for a moment down there inside the entrapment.
"We are all from different states but we stayed together like brothers. We used to eat together. After dinner, we used to walk inside the 2.5 km tunnel. In the morning, we used to do yoga because we were doing nothing else inside there," the worker said.