New Delhi: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami released the book 'Wo 17 Din' on Monday, which deals with the account of the 17-day wait for the 41 workers trapped inside the Silkyara tunnel and how they were rescued.
CM Dhami was closely tracking the ongoing efforts to safely extract 41 labourers and shared his experiences about the Silkyara tunnel adding that it was a great achievement to evacuate 41 workers safely.
"The rescue operation was successfully completed under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi," the Chief Minister said.
Dhami congratulated the author of the book, Rajiv Ranjan Singh. He said that this book is full of positivity and that it is definitely worth reading.
Last year, on November 12, a section of the tunnel, between 205 and 260 meters from the Silkyara side, collapsed in the Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand. Forty-one workers, who were beyond the 260-metre mark at the time, were trapped, with their exit blocked.
In a strenuous operation that lasted 17 days, all 41 workers trapped in the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand were successfully rescued.
The workers, hailing from various states including Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, and Assam, were extracted from the collapsed tunnel in Uttarkashi.
Rat-hole miners from Uttar Pradesh played an important role in the success of the rescue operation.
When heavy machinery broke down to drill through the debris that had trapped the workers, the rescuers resorted to rat-hole mining.
Rat hole mining involves digging very small tunnels, through which skilled workers enter and extract coal or debris.
Rat mining rescue team leader Vakeel Hasan, while recounting his memories of the moment when the team of miners saw the workers, said that it was like offering water to a person who was about to die of thirst.
"It was a very emotional feeling when we saw them and they saw us. It was like a person getting some water on a deserted land. It was like everyone accomplished their purposes. We fulfilled the commitment that we made. All the workers came out of the tunnel without a scratch," Hassan told ANI.
The government agencies also sought the help of Australian tunnel experts, Arnold Dix and Chris Cooper. Various state and central government agencies were involved in the rescue operation.
—ANI