Jharkhand to airlift its workers rescued from Silkyara tunnel to Ranchi

Preparations are afoot by the Jharkhand government to airlift its 15 workers who were among the 41 trapped in Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi and rescued on Tuesday night, an official said.

Jharkhand government officers are in touch with their Uttarakhand counterparts and a three-member team from the state had rushed to the spot soon after the collapse in the tunnel on Diwali, they said on Wednesday.

"Our workers reached AIIMS Rishikesh for the health check up around 2 pm today (Wednesday) for health check ups. The Uttarakhand government has kept them under observation. As soon as they are released from the hospital we will airlift them to Ranchi," Jharkhand labour secretary Rajesh Kumar Sharma told PTI.

The 41 workers were rescued from the collapsed tunnel in Uttarkashi on Tuesday after a gruelling 17-day operation.

They were brought to AIIMS Rishikesh in a helicopter on Wednesday afternoon, Sharma said.

Quoting Uttarakhand officers, he said the workers will be kept under observation at AIIMS Rishikesh for 24 hours.

"Once it is complete, we will take our workers to Dehradun from where they will fly to New Delhi. They will fly to Ranchi from New Delhi as there is no direct flight between Dehradun and Ranchi," he said.

The trapped workers belonging to Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Assam were rescued on Tuesday as the entire country watched with bated breath. The workers were kept under medical observation at a hospital in Chinyalisaur after their evacuation.