Lucknow, (PTI) For 25-year-old Manjeet Chauhan stuck in Silkyara tunnel, survival hinged on a picture of his parents and words of a lost brother whom he took as a role model after his death in an accident last year.
Chauhan crawled out of the Uttarkashi tunnel after 17 days of being stranded inside and broke down in tears hugging his father. “I asked him to stop crying but he wouldn’t listen. Even I started crying,” the native of Bhairampur village of UP’s Lakhimpur Kheri district told PTI over the phone.
Chauhan remembered the day the tunnel collapsed, “I was working hardly 15 metres away from where the tunnel collapsed. I thought it was a dream at first. It turned out to be a nightmare.” The first 24 hours after the collapse were the hardest for everyone, he said. “All of us were scared, people were saying all kinds of things. Thirst, food shortage, suffocation everything came to the mind all at once. But when we established a connection with a four-inch drain pipe from outside, the mood began to change,” recalled Chauhan . With every passing day, as the rescue work progressed outside, the morale of the stranded labourers, 41 in all, went up. Later, arrangements were made for them to speak to their loved ones.
