Nepal Floods Block Hydropower Tunnels, Trapping Hundreds of Workers

Mud and water have almost completely blocked hydropower tunnels in Nepal’s flood-hit north, complicating efforts to reach the more than 600 workers feared trapped underground, Prime Minister Balendra Shah has told parliament.

Shah said the floodwaters had carried large amounts of mud and soil into the tunnels in the Bhote Koshi-Trishuli corridor last week, creating an unusual and difficult rescue environment. Nearly 4,000 people remain missing in the country as authorities continue search and rescue efforts eight days after the floods.

The death toll from the flood is now 1,114, the country’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) said on Wednesday. Nearly 12,000 people have been rescued to date.

Across Nepal, families are starting to carry out symbolic funerals as hopes dim for the retrieval of the remains of their loved ones.

Nepalese authorities are also carrying out mass burials of unidentified flood victims as morgues run out of space. The bodies are being buried with identification markers, after collecting DNA samples, to facilitate their future identification.

The total morgue capacity in the Himalayan nation is only 350.

Rescue teams need the weather to improve and the mud to dry sufficiently before stable space can be created for personnel and equipment, Shah said.

He also said the tunnels offered limited space to deploy the heavy equipment needed to remove the mud and rocks.

The prime minister’s comments come as some families of those believed trapped in the tunnels question delays in the rescue effort.

At the 60-megawatt Upper Trishuli-3A project, 42 people are believed to be trapped inside an underground powerhouse, while more than 557 people remain missing from the Upper Trishuli-1 project.

The government only recently began involving technical teams from hydropower developers directly in rescue operations.

Upper Trishuli-1 Managing Director Giriraj Adhikari said the developer’s technical team should have been mobilized from the outset but joined the effort only on Monday, Kathmandu Post reported. At the Langtang Khola project, promoter Vijay Mohan Bhattarai said only one company representative had been allowed at the site until Monday.

Nepal has approached the board of the UN-backed Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, seeking financial assistance for the damages from the flood, reports said. Nepalese Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said the aid should be treated as “moral liability” and “not charity.”

“We are paying the ultimate price for a global crisis we did not create,” he was reported as saying.

”The major industrial emitters – such as China, which is the world’s top emitter, the United States at number two, and India at number three – have a historical responsibility to compensate vulnerable nations like Nepal.”