“EFFORT AND SACRIFICE”
After repeated setbacks in the operation, military engineers and skilled miners dug the final section by hand using a so-called “rat-hole” technique, a three-person team working at the rockface inside a metal pipe, just wide enough for someone to squeeze through.
Indian billionaire Anand Mahindra paid tribute to the men at the rockface who squeezed into the narrow pipe to clear the rocks by hand.
“After all the sophisticated drilling equipment, it’s the humble ‘rathole miners’ who make the vital breakthrough,” Mahindra said on X, formerly Twitter.
“It’s a heartwarming reminder that at the end of the day, heroism is most often a case of individual effort and sacrifice.”
Last week, engineers working to drive a metal pipe horizontally through the 57m of rock and concrete ran into metal girders and construction vehicles buried in the rubble, snapping a giant earth-boring machine.
A separate vertical shaft was also started from the forested hill above the tunnel, a risky route in an area that has already suffered a collapse.
Digging also took place from the far side of the road tunnel, a much longer third route estimated to be around 480m.
The workers were seen alive for the first time last week, peering into the lens of an endoscopic camera sent by rescuers down a thin pipe through which air, food, water and electricity were delivered.
The workers had plenty of space in the tunnel, with the area inside 8.5m high and stretching about 2km in length.
Arnold Dix, president of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association, who has been advising the engineers, told reporters ahead of the rescue that the men were in good spirits, and that he had heard they had been “playing cricket”.
Source: CNA
