India bid to free 41 trapped workers enters third week

The Star

India's military brought in specialised equipment Sunday as efforts to free 41 trapped workers in the under-construction Silkyara road tunnel in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.  Read more at https://tinyurl.com/mr345k6p  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

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00:00 India's military brought in specialized equipment on Sunday as efforts to free 41

00:08 trapped workers entered a third week, with digging ongoing in three directions after

00:14 repeated setbacks to the operation.

00:17 The Indian Air Force said on Sunday that they were responding with alacrity as they flew

00:22 in their third load to a rescue operation since the partial collapse of the under-construction

00:28 Silkiara Road tunnel on November 12 in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.

00:35 Rescue officials said they called for a super-heated plasma cutter to be brought to the remote

00:40 mountain location after engineers driving a metal pipe horizontally through 57 meters

00:46 of rock and concrete ran into metal girders and construction vehicles buried in the earth.

00:54 The plasma cutting will be used to remove the broken giant earth-boring drill and metal

00:59 blocking the horizontal route before digging will continue by hand.

01:04 Work has also begun from the far side of the road tunnel, a much longer third route estimated

01:10 to be around 480 meters.

01:13 The workers were seen alive for the first time on Tuesday, peering into the lens of

01:18 an endoscopic camera sent by rescuers down a thin pipe through which air, food, water

01:25 and electricity are being delivered.

01:28 Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhammi said the men are in good spirits, with the

01:34 basic telephone exchange set up so that families of the trapped men, many of whom are migrant

01:41 workers from poor families from far across India, could call in to speak to them.

01:46 "We are grateful to the Indian government for providing us with the opportunity to

01:53 conduct this exchange.

01:54 We are grateful to the Indian government for providing us with the opportunity to conduct

01:55 this exchange.

01:56 We are grateful to the Indian government for providing us with the opportunity to conduct

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