Two workers rescued alive after 9 days in Nepal hydropower tunnel

KATHMANDU: "Hunchha" - yes, we hear you. Just after dawn on Friday, a faint reply became the first voice rescuers had heard from inside the buried Trishuli 3A hydropower tunnel since the Aug 26 flood. Nepal army personnel called out, "Brothers, we are a rescue team, we are coming," and heard "Hunchha, hunchha" from the other side. By 9.20am, two workers had been pulled out alive after nine days underground - the first such breakthrough from Nepal's flood-hit hydropower tunnels. The men were identified as mechanical foreman Sanjay Sah, 30, and mechanical supervisor Kabir Maharjan, 45. Sah was stable, while Maharjan was admitted to intensive care. A third person was later found dead inside; officials said the swollen body could not immediately be identified. Officials believe around 41 workers could be trapped in the tunnel. Getting to Friday morning had taken days. When the flood struck around 10am on Aug 26, it buried the Trishuli 3A project under mud, rocks and debris and erased the tunnel entrance from view. A concentrated rescue push began around the fifth day. The powerhouse had three possible approaches - an access tunnel, cable-duct tunnel and tailrace tunnel - and teams chose the cable duct, the shortest route, though it had a steep incline and a sharp 90-degree bend. The entrance itself lay beneath a nearly 30m-high pile of boulders and debris. "Soon after the flood, Nepal Army's Special Forces, Combat Engineers and Collapsed Structure Search and Rescue teams were deployed here," Lt Col Ganga Baral, who commanded the operation, said. "Although it took some time to get the result, we eventually succeeded in rescuing two people alive." Inside, the problems multiplied. Mud and rocks, some larger than vehicles, blocked the route. Army engineers used controlled explosives where excavation alone could not clear them. Water had collected further inside, forcing crews to deploy pumps and cut drainage channels towards Trishuli river. Rescuers then found a gap about 1.5 metres wide near the tunnel roof. They worked through it, carving a passage barely large enough for a person while clearing sludge ahead. By Friday morning, Nepal army said teams had reached about 100m inside the tunnel. Australian tunnelling expert Arnold Dix, referring separately to the route towards the underground powerhouse, estimated that rescuers had tunnelled through about 60m and still had roughly 150 metres to go. Dix, who advised the operation, said rescuers faced conditions without precedent. “We knew they would be up ahead, but we didn’t know where exactly. So you just have to start digging in the right direction,” he said. He described the wider rescue effort as something “the world has not seen before”. The seven-storey underground powerhouse offered one reason for hope. Rescue teams found the lower two levels filled with mud while higher sections had retained space, potentially providing air pockets. Oxygen was pumped forward as crews advanced. Then came the voice. Engineer and lawmaker Shriram Neupane, who was involved in the operation, said rescuers first confirmed that more than one person was responding. “The fact that voices were heard from inside was an encouraging sign,” he said. By 9.20am Friday, Sah and Maharjan were out. Baral called it “an almost unbelievable success”. “We worked day and night. We kept at it,” he said. “We have proved that Nepalese can do it too.” The search continued after the celebration. A seven-member specialised team crawled through sections for 15-20 minutes at a stretch, encountering mud, sludge, rocks and collapsed overhead slabs. They found the unidentified body. “We did not hear any other voices,” a rescuer said. By afternoon, teams said they had reached the farthest accessible section, though project engineers were considering another inspection of possible spaces before calling off the tunnel search. Nepal’s disaster authority said the number of bodies recovered stood at 1,294, with 5,053 people missing, as on Friday night.