In Graphics | A day-by-day account of the daring Uttarkashi rescue operation

After 17 days of intense efforts by numerous agencies, all 41 of the workers who were trapped in Uttarakhand’s Silkyara tunnel were successfully evacuated on Tuesday.

On Tuesday night, there were happy shouts and cheers as each of the 41 workers came out one by one from the part of the tunnel that had collapsed. They were taken to the nearest health clinic in ambulances, and some of them were smiling, while others looked thankful and tired.

As the workers emerged from the tunnel , people clapped and put marigold garlands around their necks. The local residents shared sweets, and the families who had been anxiously waiting in the area for days were emotional when they finally reunited with their loved ones. Many of them said they would now celebrate Diwali.

On the last day , rescuers broke through the last stretch of the rubble around 7 pm using the rat-hole mining technique. Less than an hour later, the process of laying the escape pipe into the drilled passage was complete. Then, NDRF and SDRF teams entered the steel chute to reach the trapped workers and started bringing them out on wheeled stretchers, one-by-one.

The intense rescue mission, which clocked more than 400 hours , delayed by a series of snags and overshadowed by equal parts hope and despair, ended in success for everyone involved.

It was on the morning of the festival on 12 November, that the workers got stuck inside the under-construction tunnel.

Here’s how the rescue efforts unfolded.