41 Indian workers were stuck in a tunnel in Uttarakhand for 17 days, but they have been rescued and are now safe in the hospital getting better.
In a video that was shared with the media, they can be seen eating on their hospital beds and seem to be feeling happy.
The workers were stuck in the tunnel on November 12th because part of it caved in from a landslide.
They were released on Tuesday evening after a big rescue effort that overcame a lot of problems.
The whole country felt relieved when the rescuers finally brought out the last of the 41 men from the dark tunnel.
They were carried out on stretchers through a 90cm (3ft) pipe that had been put in a wall of debris that was blocking them in.
This good ending happened after a day of waiting, as officials said they made progress in the rescue efforts.
Videos show the workers coming out of the tunnel, they are happy and friendly, waving and shaking hands with others.
Their friends and family were feeling very happy and relieved. Some of them had been waiting outside the tunnel for days, hoping that the rescue would go well.
They were putting flower necklaces on the workers, hugging them, and giving them candy.
Chaudhary Lal, who was in a photo kissing his son Manjit, one of the workers stuck, told the media that he was really happy and relieved to see his son.
“I already lost my son in an accident at a construction site. ” “I didn’t want to lose another person,” he said.
Dhanpati, Ram Sundar’s mother, told the news that they celebrated Diwali in their village on Tuesday because her son came out of the tunnel safely. They didn’t celebrate it on 12 November, the actual festival day.
The families of the workers who were trapped have thanked the rescue workers for bringing their loved ones out safely.
At the same time, the workers have been talking to the media about what they have been through.
One of them told ANI that he recorded a video of his coworkers at Chinyalisaur Community Health Centre, where they went for health check-ups.
The workers are seen sitting on their beds, looking at their phones, eating, drinking tea, and taking pictures of themselves. Some people are brushing their teeth and some are talking by a water station.
Satya Dev, one of the men stuck, said in the Times of India that it felt very cramped inside the tunnel and he was happy to finally get out.
Another worker named Chamra Oraon told a newspaper called the Indian Express that sometimes he felt worried and anxious while working inside the tunnel, and he didn’t know when he would be able to come out.
“I never gave up,” he said. He played games on his phone and charged it with portable chargers from rescuers who passed them through a pipe.
“We couldn’t make any calls because there was no network, so we talked to each other and got to know each other,” he told the newspaper.
Another worker talked to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the phone. They said that they would support and encourage each other to stay positive and also have meals together.
“He said we would walk and do yoga to stay active in the tunnel. ”
Another worker said they only turned on their phones to see the time to save battery. But when they got chargers, they could use their phones more to have fun.
A part of the 4. 5km (3 miles) Silkyara tunnel collapsed on 12 November. The tunnel is a part of a big government project called Char Dham. This project wants to make it easier for Hindu pilgrims to visit important religious sites in the Himalayan state by building roads.
Environmentalists and people who live there say that building things too quickly, like the Char Dham project, has caused the land to sink. They think this made the tunnel collapse.