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Tunnel rescue after floods
Ten days after the floods that hit Nepal and Tibet, rescuers pulled two workers alive from a tunnel at the Trishuli 3A hydroelectric project in Nepal, where hopes of finding survivors were already slim.
“"I couldn’t simply run away alone," Sanjay Sah said after spending ten days trapped in the tunnel”
The survivors were identified as Sanjay Sah and Kabir Maharjan, and Sah told a team from the Nepal Army, "I couldn’t simply run away alone," after spending ten days trapped in the tunnel.
Sah said he lost the chance to escape because he stayed in the control room warning his colleagues, adding, "My responsibility was to save everyone’s life," as emergency teams continued searching for other people believed to remain inside.
Nepali teams had heard voices coming from inside the tunnel, and Ram Neupane, a deputy and engineer involved in the operation, wrote on Facebook that "human voices are heard from inside" as Nepal Army and Armed Police Force teams entered and intensified the operation.
Death tolls diverge
As rescue efforts continued, casualty figures varied across outlets, with Global Times reporting that Nepal Police said the death toll from the Aug. 26 mudslide had risen to 1,118 and that 4,858 people were still missing.
ABC News said Nepal’s National Disaster Management Authority reported a death toll of 1,252 and an additional 4,216 people believed to still be missing as of Thursday at noon, and it also cited Chinese state media reporting an additional death toll of 16 and 546 missing in Tibet.
Al Jazeera reported that more than 1,280 people had been killed and over 5,600 were still missing on both sides of the China-Nepal border, and it said Nepal’s NDRRMA had recovered 1,252 bodies.
In the middle of the shifting numbers, Al Jazeera quoted Sanjay Kc, an officer from the Nepalese army engineering department, saying, "We still hope there are some survivors inside," as bulldozers worked to remove mud blocking a tunnel entrance in Rasuwa district.
What comes next
Beyond the tunnel rescue, Al Jazeera said the search and rescue focus remained on hydropower tunnels near Nepal’s border with China, where hundreds of workers were believed trapped as debris and mud blocked access.
“at least 900 workers were unaccounted for at 12 hydropower projects”
The Associated Press reported that rescuers raced Monday to free hundreds of workers believed trapped in tunnels at hydropower sites buried in mud, and it said a private-sector association representing power companies said at least 900 workers were unaccounted for at 12 hydropower projects in Nepal’s Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts.
AP also reported that Nepal’s disaster agency said Monday that 939 deaths had been counted in Nepal with 3,925 people missing, including 592 foreigners, while China reported 16 deaths and 546 missing as families searched for information.
In parallel, Al Jazeera reported that Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah said authorities would continue searching for survivors while also starting rehabilitation and rebuilding efforts, and it quoted Dharma Raj Upreti, chief of the NDRRMA, saying, "about 20,000 houses would have to be rebuilt" including 7,500 destroyed.