Efforts to free multiple people from mountain tunnel near completion after nearly 100 hours

In order to reach the stranded labourers in northern India, emergency services are operating around the clock.

On Thursday, efforts to free 40 workers who are stranded in a tunnel under construction in northern India began their fifth day, with the use of heavy machinery to break through the debris. The pebbles that have fallen from the structure’s roof have caused delays in the operations thus far.

According to a story published in the Hindustan Times on Wednesday, rescue workers were employing auger machines to excavate a path in an attempt to place large-diameter pipes and provide access to the stranded labourers. The mission involves the usage of eight six-meter-long steel pipes with a diameter of 900 millimetres and five pipes with a diameter of 800 millimetres.

On Sunday, a section of the highway tunnel in Uttarakhand, a hilly state, collapsed. As of November 14, six collapses of debris had occurred inside the tunnel, according to an engineer now employed at the location, and the structure’s “span has increased to 70 metres.”

An Indian Air Force C-130J aircraft has flown in powerful equipment from New Delhi to replace the machines that had first failed to excavate a way to the workers’ stranded location. The agency cited the engineer as adding, “I think that by tomorrow evening or night, everybody will be rescued safely from the tunnel.”

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The state’s chief minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami, has been monitoring the rescue operations and has instructed local authorities to collaborate with federal agents in order to guarantee the mission’s success. The relatives of the trapped workers are also in communication with government representatives. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has received updates on the rescue effort from Dhami.

The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), the Specialised Disaster Response Force (SDRF), the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), and the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) have mobilised over 160 rescue workers.

Hours after the tunnel collapsed, walkie-talkies were used to make contact with the forty workers. Upon reaching out, they verified that everyone had made it out alive. Thus far, rescue crews have been able to bring in food, water, and oxygen through pipes.

As part of the federal government’s Char Dham all-weather road project, a section of the tunnel that connects Silkyara and Dandalgaon in the state of Uttarakhand was impacted by the accident. The ambitious plan, which is expected to cost 120 billion Indian rupees ($1.5 billion), aims to facilitate better access to China’s border regions as well as India’s well-known Hindu shrines.