This Tuesday, rescue teams rescued the first of 41 workers buried under the rubble of a tunnel under construction in northern India on November 12. Authorities expect all workers to be out in about three hours..

“The first one has already come out,” rescue engineer Chandran told reporters as he exited the tunnel in the town of Silkyara in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) spokesman Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain said at a press conference this afternoon that each worker will take three to five minutes to leave.

“It only takes three to four hours” for all the workers to emerge from the rubble, Hasnain said.

The workers were trapped in the early hours of November 12 when A section of a tunnel under construction collapsedseparated from the entrance by a layer of rubble almost 60 meters thick.

Since then, after more than two weeks of drilling, mainly carried out by a tunnel boring machine that broke down last Friday, the final section of excavation has been carried out to save them. three teams of mousetrap minersspecializing in make your way through narrow tunnelsdespite the risk it entails.

Finally, on Tuesday, rescuers managed to complete the installation of the pipeline near a meter in diameter and about sixty in length, This was announced by the head of the government of the northern state of Uttarakhand, Pushkar Singh Dhami, on the social network X.

About 41 ambulances are now waiting near the tunnel to first take people to makeshift hospital at the scene and were then transported by military helicopters to a local hospital.

Workers are expected to find themselves very weakened despite They received food, water and medicine.in addition to oxygen, from the day of the collapse thanks to a narrow pipe that connected its cavity with the entrance and survived the collapse.

The rescue of the workers, which took more than 400 hours (nearly 17 days), suffered numerous setbacks from the start, significantly delaying the time authorities had hoped to rescue them alive after minor collapses and metal obstructions hampered drilling. or breakdown of tunnel boring machines.