Uttarkashi: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday said no one is critical and labourers rescued from the Silkyara tunnel will be kept under medical observation before being sent home. The Chief Minister thanked PM Narendra Modi for his constant support during Silkyara tunnel rescue efforts.
All 41 trapped workers were evacuated successfully from the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand. Dhami met the workers who have been rescued along with Union Minister of State General (Retd) VK Singh.
"Initial health checkup of all the workers is being done in the temporary medical camp built in the tunnel," Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami tweeted.
The chief minister announced that Rs 1 lakh will be given to each of the 41 construction workers. He also said the Baukhnag temple will be rebuilt and the tunnels under construction in the hill state reviewed. Dhami said the auger machines used in the operation repeatedly hit hurdles and thanked the manual miners for accomplishing the mission.
"The manual miners played a big role in the rescue operation. International experts were consulted regarding the shortest route for the workers to come out," he said. The rescue workers pulled out all the 41 labourers trapped in the tunnel in a multi-agency rescue operation that hovered between hope and despair for almost 17 days.
Union minister V K Singh and Dhami welcomed the workers as National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) men brought them out through a steel chute that lined a 60-metre passage. An ambulance with the first of the 41 workers left the tunnel around 8 pm, about an hour after a group of rat-hole-mining experts dug through the last stretch of rubble.
