Cheers greeted a group of 41 workers as they were successfully removed from a collapsed tunnel under the Himalayas on Tuesday, the climax of a 17-day rescue operation to drill through rock and debris.
It took weeks to bore an escape route for the workers through the mountain, with the last two meters drilled by hand, before the rescued men eventually emerged.
Video footage from the scene showed Pushkar Singh Dhami, chief minister of Uttarakhand state meeting the workers, who appeared to be in good health, as they emerged from the tunnel amid jubilant scenes.
The men had been trapped since November 12 when the part of tunnel they were helping to construct in India’s northern Uttarakhand state gave way, blocking their only exit with more than 60 meters (200 feet) of broken rock, concrete and twisted metal.
The first workers were removed following a series of agonizing setbacks, during which rescue efforts were halted when the heavy machinery used to drill through the debris broke down.
Credit: cnn.com
