At the same time, the rescue workers are continuing the search for survivors so that they may be able to bring the children back to their parents and siblings. Because it's too early to give up.
The disaster management authority in Kathmandu has now registered 1,355 deaths, at least that was the status on Monday. 4,996 people remain missing. Their families' hope is fading. But there are also miraculous rescues like that of 64-year-old Chandika Shrestha. On the eighth day after the flood, their relatives no longer believed in a happy ending. According to Hindu custom, the sons made a figure from Kush grass to represent the mother's body. They burned the figure during the ceremonial burial ritual and began the mourning period. Three days later, on Saturday, helpers pulled Chandika Shrestha alive from her buried house in the village of Betrawati.
And Australian geologist Arnold Dix warns not to give up hope too soon. Dix is a tunnel expert. He is best known in India for being involved in a rescue operation in the state of Uttarakhand in 2023. At that time, the Silkyara Tunnel collapsed during construction work. The rescue operation lasted 17 days. All 41 people buried were rescued. Now Dix is in Nepal to help get people out of the buried tunnels of the many hydroelectric power plants in the disaster area.
There have already been reports of success there. On Friday, two employees of the Trishuli-3A hydroelectric power plant in Rasuwa district were brought to light after nine days in the dark depths of the mountain. On Saturday, Nepalese soldiers and South Korean specialists rescued a Chinese employee of the Upper Trishuli-I hydroelectric power project. But in total, the authorities suspect there are still 1,000 people in the tunnels of the various hydroelectric power plants. Even the Australian Dix has never experienced a rescue operation of this magnitude. “It’s like 23 Silkyaras at the same time,” he writes on the social network Linkedin. It involves “several potential rescue operations taking place at the same time in different locations.” Each has its own dangers and uncertainties.
The fight for survivors in the tunnels shows how powerful the wave was that rushed through Nepal from the Tibetan plateau on August 26th. Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said this in an interview with Kantipur TV. He called the disaster “extremely complex.” The entire landscape changed due to the flood. The above-ground power plant buildings no longer exist. Even finding the tunnel entrances among the masses of rubble and mud was difficult. And in the tunnels, the rescue workers first have to work their way to the caves where people could be waiting.
“Everything inside is buried under mud and soil,” Kantipur news agency quoted police officer Ambar Mahat, who was involved in rescuing the two employees in the underground machine building of the Trishuli-3A hydropower plant, as saying. The two survivors were probably only found on one side of the engine house because one of them called for help. The rescue workers also found a body during the operation. Nothing else.
Keep looking – that’s the advice from expert Dix. “People can survive underground much longer than one would expect on the surface,” he writes. A tunnel is an artificial environment in which one is not exposed to the weather and can find cavities with water and oxygen. He refers to successful rescue stories from the past. And he recommends that rescue workers not take the silence of the tunnels too seriously. "Silence is not evidence of death," he explains, "it is just the absence of a signal. Every rescue began in silence."
