"They hugged us...": Rat hole miners told what happened after meeting trapped workers

41 laborers trapped for 17 days in the Silkyara-Dandalgaon Tunnel under construction in Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand, were finally rescued safely on Tuesday.

On November 12, a part of the tunnel had caved in trapping all these workers inside. Rat hole miners emerged as heroes for the workers. They started manual drilling from Monday evening and made a path to go inside the tunnel.

Happiness could be clearly seen on the faces of rat hole miners when the workers come out. The smile on his face was hiding all the fatigue of drilling 60 meters inside that tunnel.

Devendra, one of the rat hole miners, has expressed his happiness. He said, "The workers were very happy to see us. They hugged us and gave us almonds."

The help of rat-hole miners was taken from Monday to rescue the trapped workers after the 25 ton auger machine failed in the last phase of the challenging rescue operation. Rat miners entered the 800 mm pipe and did the drilling. They would go inside the pipe one by one, and then dig with a small shovel with the help of their hands. About 2.5 quintals of debris would come out from the trolley at a time.

The team leader of Rat Hole Miners said, "We were confident that the workers trapped in the tunnel would be taken out. We worked 24 hours to get them out."

What is rat-hole mining?

The meaning of rat-hole mining is clear that digging like a rat by entering a hole. In this, digging is started from the side of the mountain with a thin hole. After making the pole, it is slowly drilled with a small hand drilling machine. The debris is taken out manually.

It has been widely used in coal mining. Rat hole mining is rampant in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and North East. But rat hole mining is a very dangerous work, hence it was banned by NGT in 2014.

However, officials do not agree with this. Retired Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain, member of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), said that the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had banned this technology for coal mining in 2014. But this is a skill which is used on construction sites. This process is not always easy. But it is used in difficult situations.