Rescue teams on Tuesday successfully pulled out the 41 workers who were trapped for 17 days in a tunnel under construction in northern India. The workers were pulled out through a passageway made of welded pipes which rescuers previously pushed through dirt and rocks. As the first worker was freed, he was draped in a garland as rescuers, relatives and officials cheered.

The massive rescue mission had grabbed the country's attention for the past weeks. The workers got trapped on November 12, when a landslide caused a portion of the tunnel to collapse about 200 meters from the entrance. They survived on food and oxygen supplied through narrow steel pipes.