In the removal of a metal obstacle the rescue crews advanced, resulting in optimism that they are close to freeing the 41 workers who have been trapped since Sunday in the wreckage of a road tunnel in Indian Himalayas.

The workers, who trapped for 11 days in the 4.5 km long tunnel in Uttarakhand state, they are safeaccording to authorities, and have access to light, oxygen, food, water and medicine.

Rescuers expected by this morning to have succeeded in opening a passage through the wreckage and inserting a steel pipe through which they plan to bring the workers to the surface, having already covered two-thirds of the distance between them.

However, while they had already dug down to a depth of 45 meters of the 60 meters where the trapped people are estimated to be, they came across a steel grid of beams and it took about six hours to cut and remove it, official Baskar Kulbe said.

“Based on our calculations so far, there are (…) about 14 to 15 hours (of work) left if nothing else comes up and we hope we can do it,” added the official, who is working on the road tunnel construction project. .

Once excavation operations are completed, rescuers are planned to descend through the evacuation tube on wheeled stretchers to bring the trapped workers to the surface, officials said.

On Tuesday, it became possible for the first time to make visual contact with the trapped people, thanks to an endoscopic camera that rescuers passed through the pipe from which they are supplied with air, food and water.

Their families, who have gathered near the place where the operations are conducted, they have built a Hindu shrine, where a Hindu priest prayed for their salvation.

“The day they come out of the tunnel will be the greatest and happiest day of our lives,” said 35-year-old Sansal Singh Bisht, whose 24-year-old cousin, Pushkar Singh Ari, is among the trapped workers.

Field hospital has been set up near the place where the workers are trapped, while ambulances are also there to give them first aid once they get out.

The 4.5 km long tunnel in which they are trapped is being built between the towns of Silkiara and Dadalgaon to connect Uttarkashi with Yamunotri, two of the holiest Hindu pilgrimage sites.

It is being built as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s arterial road plan, which aims to improve travel conditions between some of the country’s most popular Hindu pilgrimage sites, as well as the border areas with China.