RESCUE workers in India said today they sent medicine to 40 men trapped after the road tunnel they were building collapsed, as frantic efforts to free them entered the fourth day.

Excavators have been removing debris since Sunday morning from the site in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand to open an escape route for those trapped, all of whom were alive.

“After consultation with doctors, medicine has been sent to the workers through pipes,” police officer Prashant Kumar told AFP, from the site.

“Contact is being maintained with the workers.”

No details were given as to how many of the men were sick.

Food and oxygen had also been sent down the pipe to the men, he said.

But as rescue teams removed the vast piles of rubble, more fell from the broken roof of the tunnel, and two labourers working to remove the debris were injured overnight, he said.

Photos released by government rescue teams soon after the collapse showed huge piles of rubble blocking the wide tunnel, with twisted metal bars from its roof poking down in front of slabs of concrete.

Engineers were using heavy machinery to drive a steel pipe with a width of 90cm through the debris, wide enough for the trapped men to squeeze through.

Gaurav Kumar, another rescue official, said despite recent delays, he hoped the trapped workers would be freed “soon”.

The 4.5km tunnel was being built between the towns of Silkyara and Dandalgaon to connect Uttarkashi and Yamunotri, two of the holiest Hindu shrines.

The tunnel is part of a Prime Minister Narendra Modi road project aimed at improving travel conditions between some of the most popular Hindu shrines in the country, as well as areas bordering China.

Experts have warned about the impact of extensive construction in Uttarakhand, where large parts of the state are prone to landslides.

Accidents on big infrastructure projects are common in India.

In January, at least 200 people were killed in flash floods in ecologically fragile Uttarakhand in a disaster that experts partly blamed on excessive development. – AFP, November 15, 2023.