Two workers rescued from Nepal hydropower tunnel nine days after floods

Two people have been pulled out alive from a hydropower tunnel in Nepal nine days after deadly flash floods buried the projects in deep mud and left them trapped.

The workers were rescued during an ongoing operation at the Trishuli 3A tunnel, a hydropower project in one of the areas worst affected by last week’s floods, according to the army spokesperson Brig Gen Raja Ram Basnet.

Sanjay Shah, a foreman, was the first to be rescued and was taken to the army barracks in Trishuli. Another person, identified as Kabir Maharjan, a project supervisor, was also pulled from the tunnel. They were recovered from a depth of 170 metres (558ft) inside the tunnel, Basnet said.

A senior police official confirmed that a body had also been found during the rescue operation, which has yet to be identified. By Friday afternoon, police confirmed they had halted the search as they had found no more signs of life.

Nepal’s army released images of Shah being pulled from the small dark entrance of a tunnel. He emerged covered in mud but conscious and was carried from the site on a rescuer’s shoulder.

Speaking to army officials after he was rescued, Shah’s first question was: “What day is it?”

Shah said he had been in the tunnel’s control room at the time of the flood, alongside about 40 to 45 others. “Since I was in the control room, my responsibility was to save everyone’s lives,” he said. “After such an accident, I couldn’t just run away by myself. I had to save everyone.”

He said that after realising there had been a major accident, he raced through the tunnel telling people to run and save themselves. “In doing so, I lost time. In the end, I couldn’t get out myself,” he said.

To keep himself calm in the darkness of the tunnel, Shah said he spent his time chanting mantras. He said that while trapped, he had heard the voices of three or four others.

“We were communicating by shouting to each other from nearby. There could also be people inside the powerhouse. Some of them may not have been able to escape,” he said.

Officials said the two men had been flown to a hospital in Kathmandu. Shah was said to be stable but Maharjan was in a critical condition and had been transferred to intensive care.

Speaking over the phone from the rescue site, Amrit Thapa, deputy superintendent of the armed police force, who is part of the seven-person search and rescue team, said they had managed to crawl the length of the tunnel looking for survivors. They were accompanied by a team from the Nepal army.

“The team crawled through areas for about 10 to 15 metres and reached the main section,” said Thapa. “When we went to the final point, we found a body on the remaining upper level.”

Thapa said that “except for two sections, the entire tunnel was filled with debris. After checking everything, we did not hear any further voices. We also searched the entire powerhouse area, but so far, nothing else has been found.”

Most of the hydropower projects along the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli rivers were destroyed when a surge of water, debris and mud came coursing down the valley last week, triggered by ‌the collapse of a melting glacier on the border between Nepal and China-controlled Tibet.

At least 1,287 people were killed in the floods and more than 5,000 remain missing, according to Nepal’s disaster management agency.

Rescue efforts have increasingly centred on the hydropower tunnels, where authorities believe workers may have survived for more than a week in air pockets. So far, more than 270 people have been rescued across several projects.

Large boulders and flood waters had deluged the hydropower tunnels, blocking off the entrances, and some were buried deep in mud. At the Upper Trishuli 3A facility, it took rescue workers almost six days to find the tunnels.

Army and specialist teams have been working round the clock to try to clear debris from the tunnel entrance. At least 557 workers are missing from the hydropower project along the Trishuli River, with about 115 believed to be trapped in the main tunnel, according to the Independent Power Producers’ Association of Nepal.

Families of those missing in the tunnels have been gathering at hospitals in Kathmandu and at the Nepal electricity office for nine days, desperate for answers about their relatives.

Standing outside the hospital, Bidya Dangol, the sister of Maharjan, described his rescue as a “miracle”. “I haven’t been able to see him yet, but I am incredibly happy,” she said. “I cannot even put into words how happy I am. We had almost given up hope.”

In total, local authorities estimate about 900 workers are missing from 12 hydropower projects high up in the Himalayas, with about 500 believed to be trapped in tunnels.

Rescue efforts have also focused on Rasuwagadhi hydropower plant, where Nepali authorities said they were confident that 46 workers trapped in an underground chamber in the plant were still alive.