AFP
Villagers have set up a Hindu shrine at the mouth of the tunnel to the local god, Boukhnag, seeking divine intervention as the effort to rescue trapped workers in a tunnel continues.
The original temple had been moved during the construction of the tunnel, which some have now blamed for its collapse.
For Munnilal Kishku, ever since his son was trapped behind tonnes of rubble when the Indian road tunnel he was building collapsed 10 days ago, he has barely slept.
All that he and the other family members waiting for the release of the 41 workers can do is pray -- and hope the government's promises that all is being done to rescue the men will result in success soon.
"We never could have imagined a situation like this," Kishku told AFP from his village in the eastern state of Bihar, one of India's poorest.
He said his family were suffering "sleepless nights" as they waited.
Excavators have been removing tonnes of earth, concrete, and rubble from the under-construction tunnel in the northern Himalayan state of Uttarakhand since November 12, when a portion of it collapsed.
But rescue efforts have been slow, complicated by falling debris as well as repeated breakdowns of crucial heavy drilling machines.
Since the collapse, Kishku has had no word from his son Virendra, who is in his mid-twenties and, like most of the other trapped men, a migrant worker who left home to find employment elsewhere in the country.
"It is a tough time for us," he added. "We are regularly praying for divine blessings."
After problems in the main tunnel -- with drilling machines hitting boulders, and fears of a further cave-in -- rescue teams are now preparing two new approaches to reach the men.
One of the proposed routes, which involves starting from the other end of the tunnel, is nearly half a kilometre (over a quarter of a mile) long.
The other is a vertical shaft that, despite being far shorter, at around 89 metres (291 feet), is complicated by the fact that it involves digging above the men in an area that has already suffered a collapse.
AFP
