SILKYARA TUNNEL, INDIA – Indian workers were greeted with wild cheers and flower wreaths on Tuesday as rescuers safely pulled all 41 out of the collapsed Himalayan road tunnel where they were trapped after a marathon 17-day operation.

With beaming smiles, the rescued men were greeted like heroes after they were pulled on specially wheeled stretchers through 57 meters (187 feet) of steel pipes, where they were greeted by state officials before being hugged by their families.

“Hail Mother India!” Crowds outside the tunnel cheered as news spread that everyone had made it safely out of the tunnel under construction in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, where they had been trapped since a partial collapse on November 12 .

Relatives outside celebrated after earlier hopes of reaching the men were repeatedly dashed by falling debris and the failure of several drills. According to the government, the rescue operation took place in “challenging Himalayan terrain”.

“We are grateful to God and the rescuers who worked hard to save them,” Naiyer Ahmad told AFP, whose younger brother Sabah Ahmad was among the trapped workers and who had been camping at the site in bitterly cold temperatures for over two weeks.

“We are extremely happy, there are no words to explain it,” Musarrat Jahan, the wife of a rescued worker, Sabah Ahmad, told AFP by phone from Bihar state, where she had been desperately waiting for news.

“Not only did my husband get a new life, we also got a new life. We will never forget it.”

NOW TO CELEBRATE
Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the workers in a statement that their “courage and patience inspire everyone.”

“Patience, hard work and faith have prevailed,” said Uttarakhand state Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami, praising the “prayers of tens of millions of compatriots and the tireless work of all rescue teams.”

The workers’ health was “good” and a team of doctors at a field hospital examined them immediately after they were discharged, Dhami added.

Guriya Devi, wife of rescued worker Sushil Kumar, said she had been praying since the tunnel collapsed.

“We have been through terrible times and at times we have lost hope – but ultimately it is time to celebrate now.”

Munnilal Kishku, father of released worker Birendar Kishku, said they did not celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, because it occurred at the same time as the tunnel collapse. “We will celebrate when he reaches the village,” he said.

After repeated setbacks in the operation, military engineers and experienced miners excavated the final section by hand using the so-called “rat hole” technique, with a three-person team working on the rock face in a metal pipe just wide enough for someone to squeeze through.

Effort and sacrifice
Indian billionaire Anand Mahindra paid tribute to the men on the rock face who squeezed into the narrow pipe to clear the rocks by hand.

“After all the sophisticated drilling equipment, it is the humble ‘rat hole miners’ who are making the decisive breakthrough,” Mahindra said on X, formerly Twitter.

“It’s a heartwarming reminder that at the end of the day, heroism is most often a case of individual effort and sacrifice.”

Last week, engineers working to drive a metal pipe horizontally through the earth came across metal beams and construction vehicles buried in the rubble, breaking a giant earth boring machine.

In addition, a separate vertical shaft was started from the wooded hill above the tunnel as well as from the other side of the road tunnel, a much longer route estimated at around 480 meters.

Before Tuesday, the workers were seen alive for the first time last week as they looked into the lens of an endoscopic camera sent by rescuers through a thin tube carrying air, food, water and electricity.

Arnold Dix, president of the International Tunneling and Underground Space Association, who advised the engineers, told reporters before the rescue that the men were in good spirits and that he had heard they had been “playing cricket.”