Mission Raniganj -

And so began .

Cheers erupted. But Gill didn’t smile. The hardest part was just beginning.

The owner laughed. "How do you get them out? Drill a straw from 150 feet above? They’ll drown before you hit rock." Mission Raniganj

For his bravery, Jaswant Singh Gill was awarded the Sarvottam Jeevan Raksha Padak, India’s highest civilian gallantry award for rescue operations. To this day, the rescue of 65 miners from the flooded Raniganj coal mine remains one of the greatest and most audacious mining rescues in world history. They called it a miracle. But miracles, as Gill proved, are just stubborn men who refuse to let go.

On the fourth day, as the country watched on grainy black-and-white TV, the drill bit punched through. A roar went up from the crowd. But then—silence. Had they hit water? Had they crushed the men? And so began

The crew, sweating through their shirts, manually rotated the huge winch. The capsule scraped free. Sixty seconds later, the old man’s head emerged into the sunlight. He was alive.

"This isn't a grave," Gill said, slamming his fist on the map. "The upper shaft is dry. There’s an air pocket. They are alive." The hardest part was just beginning

Jaswant Singh Gill looked at her, then at the crowd, then at the dark hole he had just climbed out of. He simply said: "Don't thank me. Thank the rock. It held."

For the next 48 hours, Gill refused to leave the mine. He sent food and milk down the hole. He sang folk songs over the telephone line to keep morale up. He personally strapped every single miner into the capsule—each time whispering, "Close your eyes. Breathe slow. You are going home."

On the surface, panic erupted. The capsule was stuck on a rock spur. If they pulled harder, the cable would snap. If they lowered it, the man would drown in the rising water below.

The second problem was physics. The drill bit was designed for coal, not the jagged, waterlogged sandstone above the mine. Every two feet, the bit shattered. Engineers told Gill it would take 10 days. The miners had 48 hours of oxygen left.