SILKYARA - Rescuers, striving to reach workers ensnared for nearly a week in a collapsed highway tunnel in the Indian Himalayas, encounter a setback as the main digging machine breaks down.

The disaster management office revises the trapped count to 41, emphasizing that all are safe. The augur machine, vital for drilling through debris, failed on Friday. A replacement machine from Madhya Pradesh has arrived, but extracting the defunct one and deploying the new machine poses a delicate and risky operation, according to Anshu Malik Halko, director at NHIDC.

The cause of the 4.5-km tunnel collapse in Uttarakhand remains undisclosed. With the region's susceptibility to natural disasters, work was halted after a significant cracking sound during machine restart attempts.

Approximately 100 tunnel workers gather, demanding swifter progress and transparency in the rescue efforts. Vishnu Sahu, a protesting laborer, urges top company officials to join the site, expressing discontent with the lack of information about the rescue's pace.