DocuBay is set to premiere ‘41 Alive – The Silkyara Tunnel Rescue Story’, a 60-minute documentary that revisits one of India’s most challenging rescue missions involving 41 workers trapped inside the collapsed Silkyara-Barkot tunnel in Uttarakhand in 2023.

The DocuBay Original, produced by Dreamcatchers Films and directed by Akshit Mathur, will stream from September 30, 2026, in Hindi with English subtitles. The documentary explores the 17-day rescue operation that culminated in the safe evacuation of all 41 workers.

In a press release, DocuBay said the film goes beyond the headlines to explore the human story behind the rescue, bringing together the experiences of the workers who spent more than two weeks underground, the teams working around the clock at the site and the experts dealing with an unpredictable geological environment.

On November 12, 2023, a section of the under-construction Silkyara-Barkot tunnel collapsed, trapping 41 workers inside. What followed was a complex 17-day rescue operation involving multiple agencies, rescue teams, engineers, specialists and experts. The workers were safely evacuated on November 28.

‘41 Alive’ also focuses on the rat-hole miners whose manual efforts helped clear the final stretch of debris, playing a critical role in bringing the rescue operation to its conclusion.

The film features the perspective of Professor Arnold Dix, the international tunnelling expert involved in the rescue operation, offering insights into the engineering and geological challenges faced by the teams during the mission.

At the centre of the documentary are first-hand accounts from those who experienced the rescue. Testimonies from survivors and the rat-hole miners bring an intimate dimension to an operation that was followed closely by millions, while the documentary reconstructs the uncertainty, setbacks and determination that marked the 17 days.

The documentary also examines broader questions surrounding infrastructure development in the Himalayas, where engineering ambitions intersect with geological complexity and the unpredictability of nature.

Samar Khan, Chief Content Officer, DocuBay, said, “41 Alive is a story of extraordinary human resilience, but it is also a story about the many people and disciplines that came together when 41 lives were at stake.”

“What stayed with us was the sheer scale of the effort — from the experts and rescue teams working against the clock to the rat-hole miners who played a critical role in the final stretch. Stories like these are at the heart of what we want to bring to audiences through DocuBay — real events that are deeply human, emotionally compelling and offer a perspective that stays with you long after the film ends,” he added.

Director Akshit Mathur said one of the challenges was that audiences already knew the outcome of the rescue, with all 41 workers eventually brought out safely. The focus, he said, was therefore on capturing what those 17 days actually felt like for the people involved.

“The challenge with 41 Alive was that the audience already knows the ending — all 41 workers were rescued. What they may not know is what those 17 days actually felt like,” Mathur said.

“We wanted to take audiences into that uncertainty and allow the people who lived through it to tell the story. The survivors, the rat-hole miners and the rescuers give us a perspective that goes far beyond the headlines. For us, this was about making a real-life rescue feel immediate while remaining faithful to the people and events at the centre of it,” he added.

‘41 Alive – The Silkyara Tunnel Rescue Story’ streams on DocuBay from September 30, 2026.