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Tunnel rescues after floods
Two hydropower workers, Sanjay Sah and Kabir Maharjan, were rescued alive from a tunnel at the Trishuli 3A hydroelectric project in Nepal ten days after the floods, when hopes of finding survivors were already slim.
“"I couldn’t simply run away alone," Sanjay Sah said”
Sah told a team from the Nepal Army that he survived by praying and calling out to other workers, saying, "I couldn’t simply run away alone," and he added, "My responsibility was to save everyone’s life."
The rescue took place in the Nuwakot district, north of Kathmandu, while Army and Armed Police Force teams continued working to reach other people believed to remain inside the complex.
Nepali teams had heard voices coming from inside the tunnel, raising hopes of finding more survivors, and Ram Neupane, a deputy and engineer involved in the operation, wrote on Facebook that "human voices are heard from inside."
Death tolls diverge
As rescue efforts continued across Nepal and Tibet, the reported death toll and missing figures varied by outlet and update, with Global Times citing 1,118 dead and 4,858 missing after a mudslide on Aug. 26.
ABC News said Nepal’s flood death toll climbed to 1,252 and that an additional 4,216 people were believed to still be missing, citing the Nepali Government’s National Disaster Management Authority update as of Thursday at noon.
ABC News also reported Chinese state media figures of an additional death toll of 16 and 546 missing persons in Tibet, bringing the total death toll to 1,268 with 4,762 missing on both sides of the border.
In a separate Al Jazeera update, authorities said more than 1,280 people had been killed and over 5,600 were still missing on both sides of the China-Nepal border, including at least 550 foreign nationals, and Nepal’s NDRRMA said 1,252 bodies had been recovered.
What comes next
Beyond the tunnel rescues, Al Jazeera reported that Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said 1,252 bodies had been recovered and that hundreds of workers were believed to be trapped inside hydropower plants, including some in tunnels near the country’s border with China.
“"We still hope there are some survivors inside,"”
Sanjay Kc, an officer from the Nepalese army engineering department, said, "We still hope there are some survivors inside," as bulldozers removed huge piles of mud blocking the entrance of a tunnel in the Rasuwa district.
The same Al Jazeera report said the Prime Minister Balendra Shah told authorities they would continue searching for survivors while starting rehabilitation and rebuilding efforts, and it quoted Dharma Raj Upreti saying about 20,000 houses would have to be rebuilt, including 7,500 destroyed.
In parallel, ABC News said Nepali Prime Minister Shah would begin focusing on "rehabilitation" as the length of time since the initial disaster grows, while relief and rescue efforts continued with nearly 12,000 people rescued thanks to international and domestic aid.