With eager anticipation, 70-year-old Baset Murmu awaited the emergence of his 29-year-old son Bhaktu Murmu from the Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi. The tunnel had confined 41 workers for the past 16 days, and they were finally rescued on Tuesday evening.
Baset passed away the same day his son was rescued
While Baset's anticipation concluded with the rescue of his son and the other trapped workers, regrettably, Baset passed away on the same day. There are suspicions that Baset, a resident of Bahda village under Bankisol panchayat in Dumaria Block in Jharkhand's East Singhbhum district, succumbed to a heart attack on Tuesday.
"He was concerned and worried about Bhaktu’s well-being since he got trapped in the tunnel on November 12. On Tuesday morning, he suddenly fell from the cot around 8am and died of a heart attack. I informed other relatives," Baset’s son-in-law Thakar Hansda was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times.
Ramrai Murmu, Baset's eldest son, has been employed in Chennai, whereas his youngest son, Mangal Murmu, who works as a daily wage laborer, was away in a nearby village during the unfortunate incident.
Baset was depressed since son was stuck in tunnel
Bhaktu's mother, Piti Murmu, along with his sister and brother-in-law, were at home when Baset passed away on Tuesday morning.
According to family members, Baset had been grappling with depression since learning about the incident in the tunnel. “Father was getting depressed more and more every day with no positive information of Bhaktu coming out of the tunnel. This led to the heart attack,” they said.
The arduous rescue operation, spanning more than 400 hours, reached a successful conclusion on Tuesday night as all 41 trapped workers were safely extracted from the collapsed section of the Silkyara tunnel. In the final stages, the rat-hole mining technique was employed to excavate through the remaining debris.
