Nepal struggles to rescue 900+ workers trapped in hydropower tunnels after deadly floods

KATHMANDU, Nepal — As authorities in Nepal scramble to rescue more than 900 workers trapped in hydropower tunnels that are still under construction, a top group of the country's private sector power producers has criticized the government's initial hesitance in accepting help from other countries.

The floods and mudslides that were triggered by last week's ice-and-rock avalanche have buried several Himalayan villages in the border region of Nepal and Tibet.

In a statement on Monday morning, local time, Nepal's disaster management department said 903 people have died and 4,247 are currently considered missing, a sharp rise from the previous figures. At least 85 of those missing are Americans, the State Department said on Sunday.

The debris created by the various landslides has also blocked nine hydropower tunnels in Nepal's Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts, trapping 933 workers from Nepal, South Korea and China. Videos shared by the Nepali army show rescue personnel using drills and excavator machines to try to rescue those who were trapped.

Bhim Gautam, chief executive officer of the Independent Power Producers Association of Nepal, told NPR that Nepal does not have "enough technology, equipment and expertise" to mount successful rescue operations at hydropower projects. "Our expertise is only in dealing with small flooding. We have never faced a situation like this before," Gautam said.

Last week's floods, he said, not only blocked the entrances of the tunnels, but also made them difficult to locate. "In some cases, the rescue workers spent three days only in finding these tunnels."

He said his industry's leaders had to "pressure the government" to allow rescue workers from other countries. "Late last week, the government approved rescue teams from China, India and Australia to come," Gautam said. "But it is so late now."

Nepal's finance minister, Swarnim Wagle, had last week rejected reports in local and international media that asserted the country had rejected help from foreign countries, insisting that assistance had been accepted only "according to the needs on the ground."

In a statement posted to Facebook on Sunday, Prime Minister Balen Shah said the Nepali army and police, along with experts from India, China and South Korea, were now carrying out rescue operations at various hydropower tunnels.

The Nepali government has not responded to NPR's request for comment.

Political analyst Chandradev Bhatta says Prime Minister Shah's government appears to have resisted foreign help for geopolitical reasons. He says the decision was likely influenced by Nepal's experience during the 2015 earthquake, which killed thousands in the country.

"During the reconstruction phase, there was a huge competition, not only between our two neighbors China and India, but also the Western powers, who wanted to project their geopolitical power in Kathmandu," says Bhatta, who is based in Kathmandu. By the end, he says, "China managed to gain a geopolitical foothold in the country."

Foreign interference, says Bhatta, is a sensitive topic for the Shah government, which came to power after mass student-led protests ousted the country's leadership and traditional parties, which were variously seen aligning with India, China or the West.

But the initial hesitation, he says, backfired, as people took to social media to criticize the government's seeming reluctance to accept help for rescue operations. Instagram user gen.znepal, among the many accounts created to mobilize last year's anti-government protests, wrote: "Please put your ultranationalism somewhere else and urge the government to accept whatever support we receive, from whichever country, right now."

Bhatta says the government seems to also have underestimated the scale of the damage. "Had we taken support right at the beginning, perhaps we would have been able to save more lives."

Fatality figures in China under question

Meanwhile, in China on Monday, the country's Foreign Ministry denied reports that officials in Beijing had ignored early warning signs of the disaster or downplayed the details of casualties.

It insisted that the country's release of information about the floods and mudslide near its border with Nepal had been transparent and timely.

China's last update to casualty figures came on Saturday, when state news agency Xinhua reported there were 16 people confirmed dead and 546 missing. Those numbers have not been updated in more than 48 hours.

Mamita Bhandari reported from Kathmandu, Nepal; Omkar Khandekar reported from Mumbai, India.