The long wait of 41 workers trapped inside the Silkyara-Barkot tunnel in Uttarakhand ended on Tuesday as they were successfully evacuated by the meticulous planning of the rc.
According to officials, the first three workers were brought out on specially modified stretchers. These were lowered manually down a two-metre-wide pipe inserted into holes drilled into the hillside.
“We have been able to successfully evacuate all the trapped workers thanks to the brilliant rescue team,” an official said.
The officials said the last steel pipe was successfully pushed into the escape passage and stage was set to evacuate trapped workers around 7.15 pm. Rescures were able to complete 59 meters of passage drilling in the evening as announced by Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.
“By the grace of Baba Baukh Nag Ji, prayers of countrymen, tireless efforts of teams engaged in rescue operation, pipe laying work in the tunnel to evacuate workers was complete. Soon all our brothers will be taken out,” he said on X earlier in the day.
Dhami and Union minister V K Singh welcomed the evacuated workers with folded hands and inquired about their health.
Teams of NDRF and SDRF men had began entering the escape passage to reach workers on the other side of the debris around 7.30 pm.
NDRF men who went inside the passage also carried stretcher to ensure safe evacuation of the trapped workers.
Trapped workers coming out of the tunnel were examined by the medical team at the temporary facility raised by the rescuers inside the tunnel.
Earlier, rescuers at Silkyara tunnel got major success as they were able to further drill four meters horizontal escape passage kept on hold for nearly three days.
Dhami said in the morning that breakthrough was close as officials maintained rat mining method was a great help for speedy drilling of escape passage.
Rescuers were able to resume mannual horizontal drilling of escape passage on Monday late evening leading to completion of 52 metres of the passage byTuesday morning, four meters more than 48 metres work completed on November.
Latter, Uttarakhand secretary and state government’s nodal officer for the rescue operation Neeraj Khairwal said, “55.3 meters escape passage drilling was completed by later afternoon. Almost 2-4 metres were left as we expected 57-59 metres debris width to be cleared. It looked very positive. We hoped to reach trapped workers by evening.”
As many as 41 ambulances were kept in reserve for carrying the evacuated to another makeshift 41-bed hospital at Chinayalisaur airstrip. Apart from this AIIMS Rishikesh management was also kept on alert to receive trapped workers in case they were referred by the doctors on the ground.
It is significant that hopes for early evacution of the trapped workers were raised mainly after the team of six rat miners took the onus of manual drilling on Monday.