Rescue mission moving towards success; pipe-laying work completed, workers will be soon extracted from tunnel

UTTARKASHI: The Silkyara rescue operation is marching towards success. The rescuers, who completed the pipe laying work inside the tunnel, have started extracting the workers trapped in the tunnel. The SDRF team has gone inside the tunnel with the ambulances. The team is likely to return soon with the trapped workers.

41 people have been trapped inside the tunnel for 17 days. 49 ambulances were waiting outside to take them to the hospital.
On Monday, rescuers started manual drilling without the help of machines after the auger machine got stuck in the debris.
Earlier, the rescuers had completed about 47 metres of drilling work using the auger machine to lay the pipe.

Meanwhile, National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) Managing Director Mahmood Ahmad on Monday said that the vertical drilling of 36 meters has been completed which was done from atop the hill.

The workers got trapped in the tunnel on November 12. 15 persons from Jharkhand, 8 persons from Uttar Pradesh, 5 persons each from Bihar and Odisha, three persons from Bengal, two persons each from Uttarakhand and Assam and one person from Himachal Pradesh are trapped in the tunnel.