Rescuers announced Tuesday that they were able to provide camera access to the 41 workers stranded for ten days in India in a tunnel under construction which collapsed. A video released by local authorities shows these men, whose beards have grown, duly helmeted and apparently in good health, gathering around the camera, in the vast cavity where they managed to find refuge.
“We will get you out safely, don’t worry,” insists an audible voice on the soundtrack of this video. The camera was routed along a widened emergency pipe, with a diameter of 15 centimeters, through which it is now possible to deliver hot meals to them.
The workers have been stuck underground since November 12, when the tunnel they were building partially collapsed, without causing any casualties, near the city of Dehradun in northern India, in the Himalayan state. of Uttarakhand. Thanks to a first narrow pipe, put in place urgently, the emergency services were able to very quickly provide them with oxygen, water, food and means of radio communication, removing concerns about their immediate survival.
But the construction of an emergency conduit allowing the workers to be evacuated had to be interrupted on Friday, for fear of causing new landslides next to where they were trapped.
What solution to get them out?
Last Saturday, an official indicated that it was now possible to dig an 89-meter shaft to try to get these workers out over the top of the cliff. But this alternative also poses the risk of landslides and a third option is being studied, according to Indian media: drilling a conduit from the other end of the tunnel, through the still intact rock, for a total of 450 meters.
“We are doing everything in our power to get them out soon safely,” said Pushkar Singh Dhami, leader of the state of Uttarakhand, assuring in a statement that “all workers are completely safe “. Pushkar Singh Dhami said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with whom he spoke, had ordered that the rescue be a “top priority”.
Among the foreign experts mobilized, Arnold Dix, president of the International Association of Tunnels and Underground Spaces, wants to be reassuring. “These 41 men will return home,” he told the Press Trust of India. ” When exactly ? I’m not too sure,” he admitted, however.