'Signal Through Waste Water Pipe': How Trapped Workers In Uttarkashi Tunnel Communicated With Rescue Team
Recalling their unbelievable survival inside the collapsed Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand, one of the 41 workers rescued on Tuesday night shared more details about how they made it across the 17 days.
Saba Ahmed, a foreman who was one of the 41 people trapped in the Silkyara tunnel,?said they initially communicated with the people outside by sending signals through the waste water pipe to inform them that they were safe.
How he got to know about tunnel collapse
"Our priority was to send a message to the people outside that we were safe. We used the wastewater pipes to give the message to people outside the tunnel that we were safe," Ahmed said.
Ahmed, a native of Bihar's Bhojpur district, was around 2.5 km away from the collapse spot on the morning of November 12 when a colleague informed him about the mishap.
"I was assigned work at a place which was around 2.5 km from the spot where the tunnel collapsed. I was present there since November 11 night. In the morning, we planned to complete some concrete-related work at 5 a.m. Then, I got a call from one of the electricians that a part of the tunnel had collapsed. I could not believe it and asked the driver to reach the spot immediately. To my surprise, throughout the route, everything looked good. But when I reached the collapse site, I was shocked to see what had just happened," he told IANS.
Why they couldn't communicate outside?
As the tunnel got blocked, the mobile phones and walkie-talkies of the trapped workers also became useless as there were no signals. This left them with no options to communicate to those outside that they were safe.
"My mobile phone and my walkie-talkie were not working, and it was not possible to reach out to anyone for help. There are two pipes in the tunnel, one is for inlet for fresh water, and another is to send out the waste water. We decided to send a signal to the people outside that we are safe; we ran the pump three to four times, which was like sending a signal or some message.
"The people outside understood, and then we opened the waste water pipe from inside, and they opened the inlet pipe from outside and within 10 to 12 hours, we started getting oxygen inside the tunnel," he said.
What they did inside the tunnel
Unsure of when the help would come, the trapped men switched off their mobile phones to save battery, and only after a few days they got the chargers and other supplies.
"We all had switched off our phones to save the battery. And to make any call, one among us used to switch on the phone to communicate. The charger and other devices came to us after five to six days, and then we all started playing games and watching movies," he said.
Despite the harrowing experience he and others went through, Ahmed says he will return to complete the tunnel work after spending some time with his family.
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