Kathmandu: At least two people have been pulled alive from a hydropower project tunnel in Nepal, nine days after the devastating flash flood swept across several districts of the country.
There is the possibility of more people being stuck inside the tunnels in Trishuli that have been covered in mud and debris.
Local television news channels aired videos and images of a mud-covered worker being carried from the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Project on a rescuer’s shoulder.
The rescuers have calling it a “miracle.”
The two people who were rescued have been identified as Kabir Maharjan and Sanjay Shah, Nepal’s home minister Sudan Gurung said.
While Shah (30), is a mechanical foreman with the Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), Maharjan (45) is a supervisor at the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Project. Both men reportedly have injuries in their arms and legs, possibly from crawling in the tunnel after the flood covered the entrance.
“I am so happy, my heart is lighter,” Amir Maharjan, the brother of rescued supervisor Kabir Maharjan told news agency AFP.
Shah, who was in a “stable condition,” was airlifted to Battar, northwest of the capital Kathmandu, and Maharjan was taken to Chhauni Hospital, a military hospital also in Kathmandu, where he was put on intensive care, the prime minister’s office said.
The two were among hundreds of hydropower workers who had been missing since a wall of mud and debris swept through the region on August 26 after a vast glacial and rock collapse on a mountain on the Tibet-Nepal border. Local media reports claimed that more voices were heard as rescue efforts continued at the Trishuli 3A tunnel, as reported by NDTV.
The tunnel that leads to the underground powerhouse at the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Project is more than four kilometers (2.5 miles) long.
Rescue operations are also taking place at half a dozen other hydropower tunnels in which more than 150 people are feared to be trapped.
“As long as there is breath, there is hope,” Nepal’s energy minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha said in a statement.
“Rescue operations are continuing in all the affected tunnels. Let everyone’s efforts and prayers continue. We have not lost hope.”
About 900 workers are missing from 12 hydropower projects in Nepal, with roughly 500 believed to be trapped in tunnels, according to local authorities. Engineers have been pumping air into these tunnels as part of the huge rescue operation.
At least 1,259 people have lost their lives in the catastrophe, while more than 5,000 remain missing, according to the country’s disaster management agency. China has said that 21 people were killed and 541 missing on the Tibet side of the border.
Nepal’s communication minister Bikram Timilsina said officials remain hopeful that more workers will be rescued.
“We are waiting for the rescue of more and more people,” Timilsina wrote on his Facebook page.
