Trapped India workers say hope, prayers kept them alive
SILKYARA TUNNEL , India—After 17 days trapped inside a collapsed Himalayan road tunnel they were building, Indian workers described the horror of their ordeal, and the hopes and prayers that kept them strong.“We were really scared, every moment felt that death was standing nearby,” rescued worker Deepak Kumar told AFP on Wednesday. “We were not sure whether our lives would be saved or not.”
The men were welcomed as heroes after being hauled through 57 meters of steel pipe on stretchers specially fitted with wheels late Tuesday, the culmination of a marathon engineering operation.
Draped in garlands of orange marigolds, they were greeted with wild cheers.
“The world is again beautiful for us,” rescued worker Sabah Ahmad told AFP, describing the heartache of hearing his wife’s “worried and hopeless” voice while he was trapped.
‘Lost hope’“I know it was a difficult moment for those inside and more difficult for families outside,” said Ahmad, who comes from Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. “But at last we have come out, and it is the only thing that matters.”
His wife Musarrat Jahan, speaking to AFP by phone from Bihar, said that “no words” could explain how happy she felt. “Not only my husband got a new life, we also got a new life,” she said. “We will never forget it”.
Previous hopes of reaching the men were repeatedly dashed by falling debris and the breakdown of multiple drilling machines, and the men spoke of how hard it had been to keep their spirits up.
“It was not easy,” Kumar said. “After three or four days inside the collapsed tunnel, and the rescue team had failed to reach us, the reality is that our confidence and faith were at a low level.”
Most of the trapped men are migrant workers who left home to find employment, working on the Silkyara tunnel in northern Uttarakhand state, hundreds of kilometres (miles) from home high up in the bitterly cold Himalayan foothills.
Morale booster
Rescue teams later set up a telephone exchange to allow families far from the site to call in.
Subodh Kumar Verma told AFP how the first 24 hours in the tunnel were the worst, when they feared they could starve to death—if their air did not run out first. “We faced problems related to food and air for 24 hours there,” Verma said.
But morale was boosted after rescue teams managed to connect a thin pipe through to them, bringing in oxygen.
Initially, it was only small packets of puffed rice and seeds, but days later, the tube was widened to be able to send proper meals of lentils and rice, packed into plastic bottles and sent down the chute.
“After food items were sent through pipes things improved,” said Verma. “When we ate the first morsel, we felt someone above had reached out to us,” Oraon told the Express. —AFP
