More than a hundred rescue team members equipped with excavators in northern India are making significant efforts to try to free 40 workers who have been trapped since Sunday after a tunnel under construction collapsed. Progress is being made in digging a corridor to extract the workers, despite the challenging nature of the task, and rescue teams hope to be able to rescue them by Wednesday, as reported by operations official Ranjit Kumar Sinha to reporters.
Abhishek Rohila, the administrative officer in the Uttarkashi region where the tunnel collapse occurred, told AFP: "The most notable progress we have made is establishing communication, and we can provide them with oxygen and food." The incident happened Sunday morning near Dehradun in Uttarakhand state in the Himalayas, as a group of workers was about to leave and another team was preparing to enter.
Himant Nayak was working inside the tunnel when it began to collapse, but he was close to the exit and managed to escape. He recounted to AFP that initially, a few small pieces began to fall inside the tunnel, "and not everyone took it seriously," adding, "but suddenly a large amount of debris fell, blocking the tunnel." Images broadcast by the rescue teams show the force of the collapse, with twisted steel beams among chunks of concrete.
