Indian officials say rescuers have drilled through rocks and debris to reach the 41 workers who have been trapped in a collapsed tunnel in the Himalayas for 17 days.
They plan to extract each worker one at a time and bring them to safety.
According to the report, the men—low-wage laborers from the poorest states of India—have been trapped in the 4.5-kilometer (3-mile) Uttarakhand tunnel since it collapsed on November 12.
It would require several hours to extract each of them individually using wheeled stretchers and a 90 cm (3 feet) wide pipe, officials stated.
Before rescue workers can crawl through and start extracting the men, they said, the evacuation pipe needs to be forced through and the debris needs to be cleared.
As the 41 men were being taken to a hospital approximately 30 kilometers away, ambulances started to arrive, and dozens of rescue personnel equipped with ropes and ladders were positioned outside the tunnel.
According to reports, the tunnel is a part of the $1.5 billion Char Dham highway, one of the most ambitious projects of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The project’s goal is to connect four Hindu pilgrimage sites via a 890-kilometer road network.
Authorities have not said what caused the cave-in but the region is prone to landslides, earthquakes and floods
