Silkyara/IBNS: The India Air Force (IAF) has stationed its Chinook helicopter at Chinyalisaur airstrip in Uttarakhand, about 30 km away from Silkyara tunnel, to airlift workers post their rescue from the tunnel.

The chopper can be used in case any of the rescued workers need urgent medical attention.

The labourers, in such cases, can be airlifted either from the tunnel site to the Chinyalisaur hospital (a distance of 30 km) or flown to the premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Rishikesh (a distance of around 160 km).

An emergency medical centre has been set up in Chinyalisaur to treat the 41 workers trapped underground in the Silkyara tunnel since Nov 12.

According to reports, rescue teams are now just two meters, or 6.5 feet away, from breaking into the collapsed cavern where the labourers have been trapped for 17 days now.

Forty-one ambulances are on standby at the site of the tunnel collapse, one for each worker, to bring them to the Chinyalisaur hospital by road.

Local police will organise a 'green corridor' to ensure each ambulance reaches the hospital as quickly as possible.

A makeshift medical centre has also been set up - at the mouth of the collapsed tunnel - to provide first aid and emergency care.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday confirmed that the pipe-laying work to reach the trapped 41 labourers inside the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarakhand has been completed.

Interestingly, the Rat-hole mining method, a primitive coal extraction procedure, which is banned in India for being unsafe, was used to rescue the labourers after imported machines broke down and halted the process of evacuation.

Rat-hole mining experts began their work on Monday after a 25-tonne auger machine failed during the last phase of the operation.