Nepalese rescue teams are searching this Monday (7) for more than 100 hydroelectric plant workers who may be trapped in tunnels, days after four miraculous rescues from the rubble of the floods that devastated cities and villages on the Himalayan border with China.
The rescues in recent days have brought hope, as Nepal marks the 13th day after the disaster — traditionally the last day of mourning in Hindu rites — for the hundreds of people killed in the floods.
About 121 of the 900 people missing from the hydroelectric projects could be trapped in these tunnels, Army rescue teams said. Others may have worked elsewhere in the plants, but not within the vast network of tunnels.
Among those teams are trying to locate on Monday are four of six people missing from the hard-hit Chilime hydropower project in Rasuwa district who could still be alive, Shri Ram Neupane, a parliamentarian involved in the rescue efforts, told Reuters.
Authorities have obtained specialized equipment and identified the techniques needed for the operation in Chilime, Neupane said. Rescue teams believe there may be survivors trapped inside the tunnels, as many of them have air pockets, as well as spaces and rooms where people could take shelter, they said last week.
In recent days, search teams in Nepal have rescued four people, including a Chinese citizen who was pulled from a tunnel on Saturday (5). The others were two hydroelectric plant workers rescued from another tunnel on Friday (4) and a Nepalese woman pulled from her buried home on Saturday.
Government bodies in the Hindu-majority country and diplomatic representations abroad will fly the national flag at half-mast to mark the 13th day after the death, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. The date is celebrated as the last day of mourning by the faithful, who commemorate it with rituals and food offerings.
The disaster occurred on August 26, when a huge mass of mud and rocks, following the collapse of part of a glacier, collapsed into a river along the border between Nepal and the Tibet region of China. The floods leveled cities and towns and buried roads and highways under mud and debris.
At least 1,380 people died in the landslide and more than 5,500 are missing in Nepal and Tibet.
Nepal has asked the international community for urgent supplies, including high-capacity drones, Bailey bridges, DNA testing kits, tunnel rescue suits and epidemic prevention items, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
China will share information
Chinese authorities reported on Sunday (6) that rescue teams had recovered 12 more bodies, as they continued to search for hundreds of people still missing in Tibet. Many of the missing are Indians or people of Indian origin who were in the region to visit Lake Mansarovar and Mount Kailash in Tibet, sacred sites of Hindu pilgrimage.
“The Chinese side will continue to make every effort to conduct search and rescue operations and deal with post-disaster issues,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said in an interview.
China has faced pressure from some foreign tourist families in Tibet who say they have faced difficulties obtaining information about their missing relatives.
Mao said Beijing will promptly release “updated information on the disaster situation and rescue activities.” On Sunday, China invited journalists from eight foreign media outlets, including Reuters, for the first time to visit the main affected areas.
With search teams still looking for survivors, the Nepal government has not planned any major events for the final day of mourning.
“There are no organized government programs as rescue and search operations are still ongoing in flood-hit areas,” Phanindra Paudel of the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) told Reuters.
President Ram Chandra Paudel, the ceremonial head of state, today visited the flood-hit areas to assess the damage caused by the disaster, his aide said.
Security officials at Nuwakot District Prison, one of the two worst-affected districts, saved 923 inmates by shifting them to a higher building before flood waters invaded their low-lying building on August 26, Prime Minister Balendra Shah said in a social media post.
Authorities also captured 50 inmates who had broken through the prison wall and gates when the flood began and had fled just 100 meters, Shah said.
* (Additional reporting by Ju-min Park)
