India tunnel collapse: All workers rescued after group trapped for more than two weeks in Uttarakhand
All 41 workers have been rescued from a collapsed tunnel in India after being trapped for more than two weeks.
“I am completely happy and relieved,” India’s highways minister, Nitin Gadkari, said as he praised rescue workers for their efforts.
A crowd of locals shouted slogans of “Bharat Mata ki Jai,” or “Long live mother India,” and set off firecrackers as the trapped workers emerged from the collapsed tunnel in India’s Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.
Follow latest: Reaction as workers rescued from tunnel in India
Pushkar Singh Dhami, the top elected official in the state, hung a garland of marigold flowers around the neck of the first worker as he emerged after 17 days.
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First video of rescued worker in India
The chief minister of the state of Uttarakhand (right), greeting a rescued worker
Pic:Uttarakhand State Department/AP
Pic:Uttarakhand State Department/AP
‘An amazing example of humanity and teamwork’
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, praised the “courage and patience” of the workers and their families, as well as those involved in the rescue.
“It is a matter of great satisfaction that after a long wait, these friends of ours will now meet their loved ones,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“I also salute the spirit of all the people associated with this rescue operation. Everyone involved in this mission has set an amazing example of humanity and teamwork.”
India’s president, Droupadi Murmu, said she felt “relieved and happy” at the news.
“The nation salutes their resilience and remains grateful to them for building critical infrastructure, even at great personal risk, far away from their homes,” she wrote in a post on X.
“I congratulate the teams and all experts who have acted with incredible grit and determination to perform one of the most difficult rescue missions in history.”
Ambulances were lined up at the mouth of the tunnel to take the men to a hospital about 19 miles (30km) away for check-ups.
Wakil Hassan, a rescue team leader, described the condition of the workers as “first-class and absolutely fine… just
like yours or mine”.
How the rescue operation played out
The labourers became stuck after a highway tunnel in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand collapsed earlier this month.
A graphic showing how the workers became trapped in the tunnel in India
The tunnel is part of the £1.2bn Char Dham highway, being built to connect four Hindu pilgrimage sites through a 500-mile network of roads.
So-called rat miners were brought in to drill through rocks and gravel by hand after a large drilling machine broke down.
Once the men had been reached, three teams of four rescuers were sent in to help pull out the workers on wheeled stretchers through a 3-foot-wide steel pipe which rescuers had pushed through dirt and rocks.
The men had been receiving food, water, light, oxygen and medicines through a smaller pipe, which was installed to provide supplies as they awaited rescue.
‘Workers likely to develop PTSD’
While trapped, the workers had 2km of space within the tunnel to walk around in and were encouraged to talk to each other, tell stories, do yoga, take light exercise and play board games sent into them.
However, a senior mental health doctor said some of the men were likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from their ordeal.
Rescue workers installed a pipe in which they were able to send food and supplies through
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“All 41 would experience some post-traumatic symptoms like insomnia, recurrent bad dreams, recurrent reliving of the tunnel collapse, anxiety,” said Dr Dinakaran Damodharan from the state-run National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences.
“Not everyone will have the disorder, but most will suffer from these symptoms for, say, three to six months.”
The outside of the tunnel which collapsed in Uttarakhand
Dr Damodharan said they should be checked for at least a year and may have enduring changes to their personality.
While authorities have not said what caused the collapse, there have previously been landslides, earthquakes and floods in the area.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
Read more:
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Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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