Officials in India said Tuesday they were on the verge of rescuing the 41 construction workers trapped in a collapsed mountain tunnel for over two weeks in the country’s north, after rescuers drilled their way through debris to reach them. The workers are to be pulled out through a passageway made of welded pipes which rescuers pushed through dirt and rocks. Kirti Panwar, a state government spokesperson, said Tuesday about a dozen men had worked overnight to manually dig through rocks and debris, in what he said was the final stretch of the rescue operation. The workers have been trapped since Nov. 12 when a landslide in Uttarakhand state caused a portion of the 2.8-mile tunnel they were building to collapse.
