Uttarakhand Tunnel Collapse: 5 Rescued Workers To Arrive In Odisha Today

Bhubaneswar: Five Odia workers, who were rescued after being trapped in the collapsed Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand for 17 days, are scheduled to arrive in Odisha capital by noon on Friday.

The rescued workers are Raju Nayak, Dhiren Nayak and Bisweswar Nayak from Mayurbhanj district, Bhagwan Batra from Nabarangpur and Tapan Mandal from Bhadrak district.

After being declared medically fit for discharge by AIIMS-Rishikesh the previous afternoon, the workers were in Dehradun and reached Delhi airport last night. They also had an interaction with Naveen Odisha and 5T chairman VK Pandian, who enquired about their health and the facilities and help extended to them by the government there, through video call on Thursday.

Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Bishweswar Tudu has also deputed his private secretary S K Jena to assist in the transport of the five workers from Odisha. “You are requested to hand over those five workers from Odisha to my private secretary after proper medical check-up and required treatment. My office will assist those workers to safely reach their families in Odisha who are desperately waiting to meet them,” Tudu wrote in a letter to Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami.

Odisha Labour Minister Sarada Prasad Nayak, who has been camping in Uttarkashi over an week, earlier met the five workers at Chinyalisaur hospital where they were first taken after being pulled out of the caved-in tunnel on Tuesday evening. He will accompany the labourers back home.

The state government had also flown family members of the workers to Uttarkashi while the rescue operation was on to give them moral support.