41 Indian workers undergo medical check-ups after 17 days trapped in tunnel

New Delhi, Nov 29 (EFE).- The 41 Indian workers rescued after 17 days trapped in a Himalayan tunnel underwent medical check-ups on Wednesday, after which they were expected to be discharged.

A handout photo made available by Uttarakhand’s Department of Information and Public Relation (DIPR) shows workers following their rescue from inside the under-construction Silkyara tunnel on the Brahmakal Yamunotri National Highway in Uttarkashi, India, 28 November 2023. EFE/EPA/UTTARAKHAND INFORMATION DEPARTMENT HANDOUT HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

Videos recorded by the workers inside the community health center in the town of Chinyalisaur, in the northern state of Uttarakhand, showed several walking around a large room of beds as others chatted in small groups or on mobile phones, according to images released by the Indian news agency ANI.

The agency also quoted a doctor saying all 41 men had been monitored overnight and were healthy.

The workers had been checked at an improvised medical post at the tunnel on Tuesday night before being transferred to the center by military helicopters.

The workers became trapped on the morning of Nov. 12 when a section of the under-construction mountain tunnel in the northern state of Uttarakhand collapsed.

Thus began a 17-day rescue operation, during which two tunnel boring machines, hundreds of workers and specialized miners were used to get through the nearly 60-meter-thick wall of rubble that separated the workers from the tunnel’s entrance.

After overcoming several setbacks in the form of machine breakdowns and obstructions during drilling, the rescuers on Tuesday managed to complete the escape route and insert the last of the narrow pipes, almost a meter in diameter, through which the workers escaped with the help of special stretchers that the rescue teams pulled using a rope.

Once the medical examinations are completed, it is expected that the workers, several of them from other states in India, will be discharged and able to leave with their families, who were waiting Tuesday outside the tunnel at the time of the rescue. EFE

av-hbc/tw