In Uttarakhand, India, dozens of workers were rescued following an avalanche

Eight workers were killed in the Himalayan avalanche in Uttarakhand, India, while 46 others were saved.

In the Indian state of Uttarakhand, dozens of construction workers were buried by an avalanche in the Himalayas and were subsequently rescued alive from metal containers.

According to sources cited by Indian media, they lived for over two days because the oxygen in the containers they were living in was sufficient to keep them alive until rescuers could dig them out.

An avalanche struck a construction camp close to Mana village on Friday, burying 54 workers. Forty-six were saved, and eight were slain.

The mission ended on Sunday after nearly 60 hours in below-freezing conditions.

Rescuers told The Indian Express newspaper that the containers helped the majority of the workers, who were engaged in a highway construction project, “withstand the wrecking avalanche.”

Most of them were spared by these metal shelters. A top rescue official told The Times of India, “They had just enough oxygen to hold on until we got them out.”

According to the publication, a shed and eight metal containers were flung down the hillside by the avalanche’s ferocity.

Pushkar Singh Dhami, the chief minister of Uttarakhand state, has praised rescue crews for their work under difficult circumstances.

Helicopters and drones were used in the effort to release the workers by members of the Indian army, state and federal disaster response agencies, and local government.

Hospitals in the state’s cities of Rishikesh and Joshimath are treating a large number of the rescued workers.

In an army-released video, Satyaprakash Yadav, an Uttar Pradesh migrant laborer who was one of the people saved, claimed the “avalanche hit our container like a landslide.”

He went on to say that when the snow fell, the container he was in broke apart and landed up next to a river.

He said, “We were able to escape on our own and arrived at an army guest house nearby, where we spent the night.”

The majority of them were asleep when the avalanche struck, according to Rajnish Kumar, a worker from Pithoragarh town in Uttarkhand.

The container sank between fifty and sixty meters down the mountain when the snow struck it. In the army video, he remarked, “The Army came swiftly and saved us.”

Former Mana village council member Gaurav Kunwar declared on Friday that the avalanche-affected area was a “migratory area” with no permanent inhabitants.

He added that it had rained for two days before the avalanche and that only workers on border roads resided there during the winter.

Up till Tuesday, the northern provinces of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh could get snow and rain, according to the India Meteorological Department.

In the upper Himalayan regions, landslides and avalanches are frequent occurrences, particularly in the winter.

Climate warming, according to experts, has increased the severity and unpredictability of extreme weather. In recent years, the steep regions of Uttarakhand have also seen a sharp increase in development and deforestation.

In 2021, flash floods caused by a fragment of a Himalayan glacier falling into a river killed around 100 people in Uttarakhand.