Tunneling Expert Arnold Dix's Spiritual Take On The Rescue: Listen To The Mountain

An event was organised at the Australian High Commission to honour tunnelling expert Arnold Dix for his work in rescuing 41 miners stuck inside a tunnel in Uttarakhand. A spiritual dimension given to the rescue operation by Dix has been winning hearts. He has constantly spoken about respecting the mountains and giving the high regard "ma'am" (Dix addressed the mountain as ma'am) deserves. He said, "Before I arrived here, I knew that this area was the most sacred place for the Hindu people. And I also knew that the purpose of this tunnel was to allow pilgrims to go between sacred temples. For me, there was no doubt that this rescue had an epic dimension to it. A mountain that I thought was unhappy and there was a spiritual dimension to this." He added, "And this was a part of it. But this did not detract from the technical difficulty. To achieve that mission we had to be focused and bring the best engineering to the table which we did. And be respectful, and have some humility. Humility, sensitivity, and harmony with the ma'am did this [ helped in rescuing the 41 trapped miners].

On talking about the lessons learned from this rescue, he said that there was a need to take arrogance out of engineering. He requested people to listen to what nature is trying to tell us. "One needs to be even more sensitive to the complexities of building a tunnel in this environment. I do not doubt that we can build modifying tunnels through this sensitive environment. And we have to because with climate change we need safe connections in those mountains. So, I am convinced we can do it"

He had earlier spoken about, how he was humbled by the universe. "We need to be less arrogant and learn from these lessons. And a little softly listen. You would have seen when I go in there, I would put my hand into the rock and listen to the mountain. See what it was talking to me. Was it happy or unhappy? Are we gonna have a bad day or a good day? Just some sensitivity to the enormity of these mountains and how alive they are."