More than two dozen people were miraculously rescued from a tunnel collapse in Los Angeles on Wednesday night.
The Los Angeles Fire Department deployed all of its Urban Search and Rescue Teams at about 8pm to free the workers stuck under the rubble in Wilmington, CBS News reports.
As many as 31 workers were then hoisted from a crane to the surface in groups of eight until they were all accounted for, according to NBC Los Angeles.
The freed workers were seen hugging in relief as their feet touched the ground at the construction site on South Figueroa Street.
The collapse occurred at the $630.5 million Los Angeles Effluent Outfall Tunnel project, commissioned by the LA County Sanitation District.
Flatiron Dragados, the prime contractor for the sewage project, also wrote on its website that the tunnel is seven miles long, about 18 feet wide and 450 feet below ground level.
Making rescue efforts more complicated, the only access to the tunnel is as much as six miles away from where the workers were trapped, the LA Fire Department said.
But the workers were apparently able to climb over a roughly 12 to 15-foot pile of dirt to reunite with their coworkers on the other side of the rubble.
More than two dozen people are trapped underground after a tunnel collapsed in the Los Angeles suburb of Wilmington
The Los Angeles Fire Department has since deployed all of its Urban Search and Rescue Teams
They then worked together to get to the access point more than five miles away, authorities said.
From there, the workers were removed from the tunnel shaft using an elevator system known as a bird cage, Michael Chee, spokesperson for the L.A. County Sanitation District, told the Los Angeles Times.
It is the only way into and out of the tunnel.
By 9pm, the first group of construction workers were seen landing safely on the ground by 9pm, with the entire crew out of the tunnel within an hour.
‘I just spoke with many of the workers who were trapped,’ Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote on X. ‘Thank you to all of our brave first responders who acted immediately. You are L.A.’s true heroes.’
California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis added that she was ‘deeply grateful for the swift, courageous response by @LAFD and LA’s first responders who rescued all the workers trapped in the Wilmington tunnel collapse.
‘Over 100 personnel responded, your quick action saved lives. Thank you.’
By 9pm, a handful of construction workers were seen being hoisted from a crane to the surface
No injuries were reported as paramedics checked each person on the scene, according to KTLA.
The cause of the collapse remains unclear, with Sanitation District officials saying they will be looking into what happened.
But LA County officials had hoped to have the tunneling aspect of the project completed this year, with the entire wastewater management project done by 2027.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.