New Delhi:

Actor Sunny Deol got emotional today after hearing the story of a man who helped in the Silkyara tunnel rescue operation in Uttarakhand at the NDTV Indian Of The Year awards this evening. NDTV today honoured the rat-hole miners who played a vital role in evacuating 41 workers trapped in the tunnel. One of the miners narrated how they chipped in when the machines had failed to reach the trapped workers.

“We told them that we will do the job in 24-36 hours. But, in today’s day and age people believe more in diploma than in experience,” said the miner. They also spoke about the daily hardships that they go through even after doing a great deed.

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Sunny Deol teared up while hearing the stories of the real life heroes. He walked up to the stage and hugged the miners. He was later seen clicking selfies with them.

The 41 workers were stuck in a part of the tunnel for seventeen days after its partial collapse on November 12 last year.

The rat-hole miners manually drilled the final stretch of about 15 metres through the debris in the collapsed part of the tunnel to prepare an escape passage made of steel pipes for the trapped workers. The ‘rat hole’ mining process was banned by the Supreme Court in 2014 for being unsafe and causing environmental pollution.

Rat-hole mining was the last strategy adopted by the rescuers after several attempts to reach the workers with the help of auger machines failed to produce the desired results. The larger drills also broke down repeatedly after hitting metal obstacles, specifically steel rods from the collapsed tunnel structure. This forced more pauses while laser cutters were deployed.

New Delhi:

A group of men who rescued 41 workers trapped inside a collapsed tunnel in Uttarakhand were honoured with NDTV’s India’s Heroes Award.

The workers inside the tunnel in Uttarakhand’s Silkyara had been trapped for 17 days, and some of the world’s best experts and equipment had failed to make any progress – until these men came with basic tools and started digging, using an outlawed technique known as “rat-hole mining”. They are the Silkyara Saviours.

The men honoured with the award are Vakeel Hasan, Munna Qureshi, Nasheen Md, Rasheed Md Eshaad, Feroz, Naseerudin, and Kalimullah.

“It was God’s blessing and the wishes of 144 crore people of India that made this rescue mission a success,” the Uttarakhand rescue heroes said. “What can a human do alone? It was the love and encouragement that gave us the strength,” they said.

On whether at any point during the rescue operation they felt they wouldn’t be able to make it, considering the huge challenge they faced, Munna Qureshi said his friend Vakeel Hasan called him to say 41 people are trapped under a tunnel and we need to do something fast.

“I didn’t know about it. We work hard for a living, take care of family, and get no time to see the news. Then bhaiyan said 41 people need to be rescued. Big, big machines have failed. I asked him to send us a video of the condition, which he did,” Mr Qureshi said.

“I saw the video and told him, yes, we can rescue them. Our whole team got ready. When we reached the site later, we figured it would take 24 to 36 hours. But these days people believe more in diploma than in experience,” he added.

An American auger machine had failed to cut through the debris blocking the escape path for the 41 workers. Mr Qureshi and his team then used the rat-hole mining technique, which involves one man drilling, another collecting the rubble, and the third placing it on a trolley to be pulled out. They were not rat-hole miners, but knew the technique, the Uttarakhand government’s nodal officer Neeraj Khairwal had said.

The NDTV Indian of the Year Awards honour people who have displayed foresight, embraced uniqueness, and redefined the essence of being a true Indian.