 "Uttarkashi tunnel")
The Uttarkashi rescue operations, among the most significant in recent years, finally concluded on Tuesday night, with the evacuation of the 41 labourers stuck in the Silkyara tunnel for 17 days.
After facing numerous obstacles in the past two and a half weeks, the operations were completed following a coordinated push by Army engineers and rat-hole miners, who manually drilled through the last 17 metres of the debris.
“It is a matter of great satisfaction that after a long wait these friends of ours will now meet their loved ones. The patience and courage that all these families have shown in this challenging time cannot be appreciated enough,” wrote Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a post on social media.
“I also salute the spirit of all the people associated with this rescue operation...” Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari called the rescue operations one of the most significant in recent years.
While Minister of State for Highways V K Singh and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami were present at the spot to welcome the rescued workers, the Prime Minister was expected to meet them at the hospital.
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After a breakthrough by rat-hole miners and engineers, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the Uttarakhand State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams, along with paramedics, sprang into action to evacuate the workers on wheeled stretchers.
After a preliminary assessment at a makeshift 10-bed facility set up near the site, the evacuees were taken to a 30-bed facility at the district hospital, where their health was to be monitored for 48-72 hours.
Earlier in the day, families of the workers had been asked to prepare for their arrival. Ambulances and a Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter were kept on standby to rush them to Rishikesh in case of health emergencies. No such emergencies, however, were reported as of the time of going to press.
These workers had been trapped since November 12, when the tunnel designed to connect the road to Barkot town had collapsed and debris had fallen in a 60-metre stretch on the Silkyara end. The rescue team had first tried to send a 900 mm pipe through the rubble, but it had to simultaneously explore alternative approaches due to safety concerns.
According to official data, 15 of these 41 workers are from Jharkhand, eight from Uttar Pradesh, five each from Odisha and Bihar, and the rest from Assam, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.
The Himalayan rescue, which started with the arrival of a JCB, turned out to be a far more complicated exercise, prompting an introspection within the highways ministry. The National Highways Authority of India, meanwhile, ordered a safety audit of its 29 under-construction projects by DMRC and Konkan Railway.
Light at the end of the tunnel
