All rescued 41 labourers, who were trapped inside a Uttarakhand tunnel for 17 days, were airlifted in an Indian Air Force Chinook helicopter to undergo medical checkups at AIIMS in Rishikesh.

Sources told India Today that doctors and specialists at AIIMS would examine if the workers suffered any trauma or infections during the last 17 days.

The mammoth rescue operation to evacuate the 41 trapped workers in a tunnel in Uttarakhand's Silkyara came to an end Tuesday after a 17-day multi-agency drill that finally met with success.

All the labourers were brought out of the tunnel bringing a sigh of relief nationwide.

After several high-tech machines failed, the rescuers relied on the banned manual "rat-hole"-mining technique to drill through the nearly 60 metres of rock that threatened to bury the workers.

All the rescued workers were taken to the make-shift hospital in Chinyalisaur for medical check-ups and acclimatisation to the temperature outside, which has dropped much over the last two weeks.

Three teams of the National Disaster Response Force, or NDRF, went inside the tunnel to bring out the trapped workers.