India’s transport minister announced on Tuesday that all 41 construction workers trapped for 17 days in a collapsed mountain tunnel in the country’s north had been brought to the surface, France24 reported, citing News.ro.

Nitin Gadkari, India’s road transport and highways minister, told X that he felt “complete relief and happiness” after everyone was rescued from the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a 17-day ordeal.

“I am very happy that all 41 workers who were trapped got out and that their lives were saved,” he said in a video message. Gadkari added that “it was a well-coordinated multi-agency effort that marked one of the most important rescue operations in recent years.”

Indian rescuers on Tuesday pulled out the first of 41 construction workers trapped for 17 days in a collapsed tunnel in the Himalayas, hours after digging through rubble of rock, concrete and earth to reach them. The safe evacuation of workers began more than six hours after rescuers managed to get in and finish installing the pipe, ending the ordeal that began on the morning of November 12 when the tunnel collapsed.

“The first one out,” said a rescue official outside the 4.5km tunnel in the northern state of Uttarakhand. The rescue of 41 construction workers who were stuck in a collapsed tunnel in the Himalayas for 17 days was met with cheers and shouts of joy. Ambulances with lights on were lined up at the entrance to the tunnel to transport workers to a hospital about 30km away.

The rescued men were greeted with yellow and orange flowers in celebration as they were welcomed by officials.

The workers were seen alive for the first time exactly a week ago, when they looked through the lens of an endoscopic camera, which the rescuers sent down a thin tube, through which the things necessary for their life were delivered. Although they had plenty of room in the tunnel when trapped, the inner area was 8.5 meters high and about 2 kilometers long.

For 17 days, the men received food, water, light, oxygen and medicine through a tube, but efforts to dig the tunnel with powerful boring machines were thwarted by a series of obstacles, and the tunnel had to be delivered until then. the so-called “predator rats” who dug piles of rubble with their bare hands to install the pipe.

The ruined tunnel is part of the $1.5 billion Char Dham Expressway, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most ambitious projects, which aims to connect the four Hindu pilgrimage sites with a 890 km road network.

Authorities have not said what caused the collapse, but the region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods.