Unsung diggers of city sewers become heroes of Silkyara | India News

DEHRADUN/LUCKNOW: Almost always, after their “dirty” work is done and they are ready to call it a day, no one remembers their name. There is seldom a “thank you”. On Tuesday evening, as they became the first ones to reach 41 labourers trapped in Uttarkashi’s Silkyara tunnel, they were called “angels from above”. Farishte.
The rag-tag team of ‘rat-hole’ miners who played perhaps one of the most important roles in the rescueof the workers in Uttarakhand, doing in hours what no machine could in several days, make for unlikely heroes.But now many – especially the men, who were inside the tunnel for 17 days, and their families – will remember their names for a long time.

“It was a very emotional moment,” said 27-year-old Nasir Khan, one of the ‘rat-hole’ miners involved in the rescue that had an entire nation glued to TV sets, hanging on to each word that came out in the newspapers. “All of us were on the verge of tears. The labourers hugged us when they saw us come for them. They said we were God-sent.”

Khan added: “We are also labourers like them, but never had I imagined I would be rescuing so many people. Who would’ve thought.” None perhaps.
It was a job like no other. The 12 men, who cleared the passage for the trapped group to eventually come out from, worked without a break for 26 hours. And with little at their disposal except their skills, fortitude and some basic tools.