In what has become a light at the end of the tunnel, the battle for rescuing the 41 trapped workers in an Uttarakhand tunnel has attained a major breakthrough as the rescuers are getting very close to the trapped men, which has indicated that the men who are under the rubbles for over a fortnight are hours away from breathing a fresh air. 

After repeated failures from machineries, the breakthrough has come when the rescue mission has resorted to manual drilling and with a significant progress, it is believed that the rescuers could reach the trapped men on Tuesday- November 28. The under-construction tunnel, situated in Silkyara of the Uttarkashi district, is one of the huge infrastructural projects of the Modi regime and amidst construction, a part of the tunnel was collapsed on November 12 after which 41 men went into dark. 

The tragic event sparked what has become one of the biggest rescue missions in India. Both the state and the union governments had rolled out the rescue operation and ensured that all the workers are safe and alive. Though the initial progress of the mission gave setbacks, separate pipelines were made to send oxygen, food, and other essentials to the trapped men. 

The authorities had also established a communication route between them and the trapped men and it has become a first breakthrough. With repeated failures of machineries, it was eventually decided to resort to the manual drilling to rescue the men. The manual drilling started earlier this week and through its good progress, it has now reported a major breakthrough of getting very close to the trapped men. 

According to Reuters, the rescuers are just six or seven metres, around 20-23 feet, away from the 41 trapped men and they expressed confidence that they would reach the trapped men on Tuesday. The manual drilling has been carried out by rat miners and on Monday, they started drilling through the rocks and gravel by hand. The officials on the ground asserted that the manual drilling has been making good progress.

Deepak Patil, a senior officer of the rescue mission, has said that the rescuers are about six or seven metres away from the trapped men and that more than 50 metres of an estimated 60 metres of debris had been bored through. Replying to a question whether the rescuers could reach the trapped men on Tuesday, Deepak Patil said, "Sure, one hundred percent." 

These rat miners are experts at a primitive, hazardous, and controversial method used mostly to get at coal deposits through narrow passages. A team of twelve rat miners has been involved in manual drilling and their progress has conferred a hope that the trapped men would be brought out of the tunnel, probably on Tuesday or Wednesday. Earlier, renowned Australian mining and underground expert Arnold Dix had promised that the trapped men would come home before Christmas.  

Exhibiting that the union government is closely watching the mission and is taking all possible efforts to rescue the trapped men, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Principal Secretary PK Mishra, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, and Uttarakhand Chief Secretary SS Sandhu visited the tunnel on Monday and took stock of the rescue operation. Mishra spoke to the trapped workers and assured them that multiple agencies were at work to evacuate them and they should remain patient.