Following the successful evacuation of 41 trapped workers from the Silkyara tunnel on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally reached out to the rescued individuals via phone.
All 41 men, who had been rescued from the collapsed tunnel after a challenging 17-day ordeal, are currently receiving primary medical treatment at the Community Health Centre in Chinyalisaur.
Among those rescued are individuals from various states, including Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Assam, and Himachal Pradesh. Notable names among the survivors include Viswajit Kumar, Gabbar Singh Negi, Saba Ahmed, Tapan Mandal, and others.
Before the successful operation, Prime Minister Modi had conveyed his best wishes to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami for the safe evacuation of the workers from the Silkyara tunnel. During the operation, PM Modi sought updates from the Chief Minister regarding the well-being of the workers.
In response to the successful rescue, PM Modi commended the courage and determination of the rescue teams involved in the Silkyara tunnel operation. He wrote on his official X handle, “The success of the rescue operation of our labourer brothers in Uttarkashi is making everyone emotional. I want to say to the friends who were trapped in the tunnel that your courage and patience is inspiring everyone. I wish you all well and good health. It is a matter of great satisfaction that after a long wait, these friends of ours will now meet their loved ones. The patience and courage that their families have shown in this challenging time cannot be appreciated enough. I also salute the spirit of all the people associated with this rescue operation. Their bravery and determination have given new life to our labourer brothers. Everyone involved in this mission has set an amazing example of humanity and teamwork.”
उत्तरकाशी में हमारे श्रमिक भाइयों के रेस्क्यू ऑपरेशन की सफलता हर किसी को भावुक कर देने वाली है।
टनल में जो साथी फंसे हुए थे, उनसे मैं कहना चाहता हूं कि आपका साहस और धैर्य हर किसी को प्रेरित कर रहा है। मैं आप सभी की कुशलता और उत्तम स्वास्थ्य की कामना करता हूं।
यह अत्यंत…
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 28, 2023
Speaking to the workers who were rescued successfully from the tunnel, he said, “First I would like to congratulate all of you that we were able to come out of such a crisis and it is a matter of great joy for me. I can’t even describe it in words. Otherwise, if anything had gone wrong, it would have been difficult to say how to handle the mind. It was the grace of Kedarnath Baba and Badrinath Bhagwan that we all came out of the crisis and 16-17 days is not a short time. You all showed great courage and kept each other’s courage.”
#WATCH | Prime Minister Narendra Modi's telephonic conversation with the workers who were successfully rescued from Uttarakhand's Silkyara tunnel after 17 days pic.twitter.com/G1q26t5Ke8
— ANI (@ANI) November 29, 2023
The workers also spoke to the PM and this is what they had to say to him. “We were trapped in the tunnel for nearly 18 days but not even a single day did we feel that we were weak or scared. We are 41 members and from different states but we are like brothers. If anyone had a problem, we would solve it together. We got our food regularly and we would eat together. We used to walk in the 2.5km tunnel and do yoga in the morning. We would like to thank the Uttarakhand government who treated us so well and our CM Dhami who was in touch with us all the time. When we came out of the tunnel, he was there waiting for us. VK Singh sir was also there and hugged us.”
Light At The End Of The Tunnel
The last few hours of the rescue operation were the most nerve-wracking for the entire nation. The trapped workers finally made it outside as a result of a massive operation conducted by central and state rescue teams dedicated to their safe evacuation.
The breakthrough occurred when experts in rathole mining were brought in, stepping in after high-tech drilling machines faced challenges in clearing the last few meters of the tunnel. Executing the final 12-metre stretch in less than 24 hours, the skilled miners achieved success in Uttarakhand. Commencing the extraction operation around 8 pm, all workers were safely evacuated on stretchers within approximately an hour.
To facilitate re-acclimatisation to surface conditions, where the temperature hovered around 14 degrees Celsius, each worker was brought out gradually, with the extraction process being a meticulous operation.
Specially modified stretchers were employed for the workers, lowered manually through a two-metre-wide pipe inserted into holes drilled into the hillside. Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami and Union Minister Gen VK Singh were present, personally greeting and embracing the workers as they emerged.
(with inputs from OpIndia)
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