Just half an hour before their shift was about to end, 41 workers in Uttarakhand got stuck in a tunnel. This is how their rescue mission is panning out.
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00:0041 construction workers were trapped under this hill for 10 days and counting.
00:05Rescuers were trying all ways to reach them, with pipes to communicate,
00:09Khichri in bottles, etc.
00:24It was 12 November 2023, the day of Diwali.
00:28The night shift workers were reaching the end of their shift.
00:31But just before 6 am when their shift would end, the tunnel they were building caved in.
00:36It was 5.30 am.
00:38They were cut off from the outside world just half an hour before they'd leave for home.
00:42This happened in Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand.
00:47The tunnel was part of a Rs 12,000 crore worth highway project of the Narendra Modi government,
00:53aimed at connecting the four Hindu pilgrimage sites of Yamunotri,
00:57Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath, known as the Chardham of Uttarakhand.
01:02The Supreme Court had appointed a committee of environmentalists to look into the highway project.
01:07They said the government went ahead with it on fragile terrain,
01:11despite the ecological concerns they'd raised.
01:13In 2022, the chairperson of the committee, Professor Ravi Chopra,
01:18had resigned saying the road ministry was ignoring the panel's recommendations.
01:22The Silkyara tunnel, which caved in, was one that would take pilgrims to Yamunotri.
01:27It was 4.5 km long.
01:29The Navyug Engineering Company Limited was building the tunnel.
01:33This is the same company that built the Dholasadia bridge,
01:36the longest bridge over water in India which connects Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
01:40In Uttarkashi, the construction workers who were trapped 260 metres away from the
01:45mouth of the tunnel were said to be unhurt.
01:47Between the trapped people and the outside world stood a 60 metre wide wall of debris.
01:52The debris had collected in the tunnel after a landslide
01:56which put too much pressure on the tunnel.
01:58Rescuers used an existing pipe to provide the workers with oxygen
02:02and food items such as dry fruits and khichdi in bottles.
02:05From day one, we have been sending them chana, murmura, dry fruits.
02:10Medicines including multivitamins, antidepressants and those for nausea etc
02:15were also sent down to the workers.
02:25A previously built water pipe was supplying water inside
02:28and electricity was also unaffected which provided light in the tunnel.
02:33On the fateful day the tunnel collapsed,
02:35debris had started falling on the tunnel's floor around 5 am
02:39when one of the construction workers was leaving.
02:41He was 20-year-old Om Kumar who had come here to work from Jharkhand.
02:45Kumar said he was too exhausted to take note of the debris
02:48and so he left without flagging it to the others.
02:51Within half an hour of his exit, a part of the tunnel caved in
02:55and his three friends who were between 18 and 21 years old
02:58were trapped along with 38 others.
03:01And now, a regretful Kumar refused to leave the area
03:04until his friends were brought out to safety.
03:16Although the construction sector was one of the highest employers in India,
03:21it was also one of the most unsafe professions.
03:24The major causes of deaths related to construction included electrocutions,
03:28falls and the collapse of walls and scaffolding.
03:31Fortunately, none of the workers trapped in the Uttarkashi tunnel lost their lives.
03:36The family and friends of some of them reached the spot,
03:39waiting with bated breath through sleepless nights for the return of their kin.
03:43Tension ran high with the relatives and colleagues of trapped workers
03:47even having confrontations with the rescue workers
03:50about the slow speed of the rescue mission.
03:52The speed had been affected due to the fear of more collapse.
03:56Right after the collapse on 12 November,
03:58a drill machine was used to make a pathway through the debris wall.
04:02The rescuers had planned to insert a three-feet-wide pipe into the pathway
04:06and have the trapped workers use it to come out.
04:09But after drilling for some meters,
04:11they heard a loud cracking sound and stopped drilling on 17 November.
04:15The auger machine also broke.
04:17Then they started to find other routes to reach the trapped workers.
04:21On 18 November, the Border Roads Organization started building a road on the hilltop
04:26through which a vertical tunnel could be drilled to reach the workers.
04:30Help from international experts also reached the site.
04:33Arnold Diggs, an expert on underground tunneling, said,
04:37We're going to get them out for sure.
04:38This is gonna happen and look, we're on it.
04:41The rescue of the trapped workers was still a developing story
04:45at the time of publishing this report.