SILKYARA TUNNEL: RESUMPTION OF WORK UNKNOWN, WORKERS IN A FIX

Workers at the Silkyara tunnel are now faced with a dilemma, whether to stay back or return to their homes, which their family members desperately want them to do, days after 41 trapped colleagues were evacuated in an almost 17-day-long rescue operation.

“I have filled up the leave application form to go back home. We don’t know when the construction work will resume,” a machine operator from Bihar said.

Another labourer said his mother wants him to quit the tunnelling job. “We work in such conditions.... it is dangerous,” he said.

According to a government official, the construction work could only be resumed after a safety audit of the tunnel. The mountain was drilled from the top to about 45 meters to rescue the trapped workers and the debris was still lying in the tunnel, he said.