Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami Tuesday met the construction workers brought out of the collapsed Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi. The workers were pulled out after 17 days or confinement in the tunnel.
Uttarkashi (Uttarakhand) tunnel rescue: CM Pushkar Singh Dhami meets the
workers who have been rescued from inside the Silkyara tunnel pic.twitter.com/f4JsRKsqmJ— ANI (@ANI) November 28, 2023
The chief minister garlanded each of the workers as they come out. The CM was camping at the tunnel site since evening. During this entire operation, the CM visited the site several times and even spent a night there.
CM Dhami said that an initial health checkup of the evacuated workers was being done at a temporary medical facility set up inside the tunnel.
“The work of evacuating the labor brothers trapped in the Silkyara Tunnel has started. So far 8 workers have been rescued. Initial health checkup of all the workers is being done in the temporary medical camp built in the tunnel,” he said.
The chief minister, who monitored the entire rescue operation minute-by-minute said it was a victory of hard work and faith.
“Patience, hard work and faith won,” he wrote on X, and shared a video of him interacting with the rescued workers.
धैर्य, परिश्रम एवं आस्था की हुई जीत। pic.twitter.com/bF4hupYDMa</a>
— Pushkar Singh Dhami (@pushkardhami) November 28, 2023
After 17 days of the marathon operation, the hard work of the rescue teams that involved tunneling experts from India and abroad paid off as all the trapped workers were brought out safely.
As many as 41 construction labourers, mostly from Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, were trapped inside the tunnel since November 12 when a portion of it collapsed following a landslide.