After 16 days, rescue is near for workers stranded in the tunnel, officials say

After a 16-day effort to free dozens of Indian construction workers trapped in a Himalayan road tunnel, rescuers finally cleared a path through the rubble on Tuesday and were preparing to pull the men out, authorities said.

The rescue operation hit repeated roadblocks, with officials eventually trying to reach the 41 stranded men in various ways. But a breakthrough came Tuesday afternoon, when trained miners used hand tools to drill through the last piece of rubble after a machine used to push through the rubble failed.

“The work of laying the pipe to rescue the workers has been completed,” Pushkar Singh Dhami, the chief minister of the northern state of Uttarakhand, the location of the tunnel, said in a brief statement on social media. “Soon all the workers’ brothers will be eliminated.”

The workers’ ordeal, which was closely followed in India with regular updates on television channels and social media, put longstanding concerns about large-scale construction work in the fragile Himalayas on the attention of environmental experts.

The men were building a tunnel that is part of a major road project on a Hindu pilgrimage route when a landslide left them behind about 60 meters of rubble early on November 12.

Early Tuesday afternoon, as officials reported that drilling had reached the last few meters separating rescuers from trapped workers, images from outside the tunnel showed a slew of activity. Dozens of rescue workers in orange overalls carried ropes and ladders, parked ambulances drove toward the tunnel and prayers continued at a small makeshift temple along the road in the distance.

Relatives of the stranded workers were told to be ready as each worker would accompany one family member to the hospital.

“I will accompany Sanjay when he gets out. I feel peaceful right now. We feel energized and happy to hear that the ordeal will be over soon,” Jyotish Basumatary, brother of Sanjay Basumatary, one of the trapped men, said by phone from outside the tunnel.

Over the course of the two-week operation, officials’ earlier assessments that rescuers would reach workers soon turned out to be false alarms after drilling encountered setbacks.

In the hours after the Nov. 12 landslide, officials were able to establish communications and confirm that workers were safe. But initial drilling efforts were hampered by additional falling debris.

A small pipe running into the tunnel was used to obtain food, water and oxygen for them. About a week after their story, an endoscopy camera sent down the pipe revealed the first images of the workers, easing their families’ concerns.

On day 13, the rescue effort appeared to be in disarray when an American drill broke down with less than 20 meters to go while drilling. As they tried to loosen and loosen the drill, officials initiated backup plans, including one in which workers began drilling vertically from the mountaintop.

New machines were flown in from various parts of the country. But ultimately the rescue effort – aided by international tunneling experts – found success with manual drilling by ‘rathole miners’ in the final stretch of path largely cleared by the drill.

In India, rathole mining is a term for a method in which workers dig very small tunnels to reach coal.

Mr Basumatary said he had spoken to his brother eight or nine times since he was trapped. “The last time I spoke to him was last night. He said, ‘We’re doing well. We get food and clothing, mustard oil, chapatis, vegetables, lentils, rice and biscuits, apples and oranges.’”

Mr Basumatary said the workers went hungry on the first day, but basic foodstuffs – rice flakes, cashews and raisins – reached them on the second day. Good food, including hot meals, started reaching them about a week later, he said.

Most of the workers trapped in the tunnel came from India’s poorer states such as Jharkhand, Odisha and Assam, places with high levels of migration for work. Family members said they worked for a salary of about $250 a month.

“I feel very good – my heart is high as a mountain today,” says the father of a worker told television reporters outside the tunnel, pointing his head towards the mountain where his son was trapped.

The man who gave his name Chaudhary Speaking to reporters, he said the government had helped him with accommodation while he waited for his son at the tunnel and provided him with the clothes he was wearing. The man had a backpack and a television reporter asked him what he had in it for his son, whom he would accompany to the hospital.

“Nothing. We have nothing, so what can I bring him?” the man said, smiling as he unzipped the bag to reveal some clothes. “The clothes I’m wearing were also given to me.”

“I’ll say to him, ‘Son, I’m very happy today. The whole country, even the trees and plants, are happy,” he said.