Two workers were rescued alive Friday from a hydropower tunnel in Nepal 10 days after devastating floods swept through the country, as the reported death toll rose to 1,259 and the number of missing reached 5,083.
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Mechanical foreman Sanjay Sah and mechanical supervisor Kabir Maharjan were found about 170 meters inside the tunnel after rescue teams broke through. Operations continued Friday as crews worked to reach other workers believed to be trapped inside.
Maharjan was suffering from mild hypothermia and severe exhaustion in his hands and feet, which he was unable to move normally, according to information available after the rescue. Sah was in stable condition, with an initial medical assessment showing normal parameters, although he was due to undergo further tests.
Sah says he heard other workers
Sah, the first of the two men to be brought out, said he had remained in a control room to alert colleagues rather than flee alone.
“I could not simply run away alone,” he said in his first remarks after the rescue. He said he survived by praying and communicating by shouting with other workers.
“My responsibility was to save everyone’s life,” Sah said, adding that during his 10 days underground he heard the voices of other people trapped nearby and was able to communicate with some of them by shouting.
Rescuers had also heard voices from inside the tunnel before the two men were found, prompting the Nepalese Army and Armed Police Force to intensify the operation.
Ram Neupane, a lawmaker and engineer involved in the rescue, said teams had briefly established communication with people inside the tunnel. Rescuers shouted, “Do not be afraid, we are rescuing you,” and received the response, “Okay,” he said.
The rescue has raised hopes that more people could still be alive underground as crews continue clearing a path through the tunnel.
Hundreds of hydropower workers remain missing
Initial information collected by the Independent Power Producers’ Association of Nepal indicated that 42 workers and employees had been trapped at the underground facility, which has a capacity of 60 megawatts.
Trishuli 3A is in Nuwakot district, north of Kathmandu, along the Trishuli River corridor, one of the areas hardest hit by the Aug. 26 floods. Search operations have been underway for days at several hydropower plants in the region, where hundreds of workers remain unaccounted for and some are believed to be trapped in tunnels blocked by mud and debris.
Nepal’s latest report put the number of missing people at 5,083 and the death toll at 1,259 following the disaster. Of more than 1,200 bodies recovered since Aug. 26, only 95 had been returned to their families, according to the report. Authorities were also continuing to search for about 900 hydropower workers whose whereabouts remained unknown.
Establishing an exact death toll has become increasingly difficult as thousands remain missing and authorities are also counting human remains recovered separately, creating the possibility that some victims could be counted more than once.
About 600 children also remained unaccounted for in Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts, according to a preliminary count by education authorities, which were still trying to determine how many survived and how many were among the thousands of missing people.
The Aug. 26 floods, described by local observers as the largest in living memory, caused the Trishuli River to rise 15 to 18 meters above its normal level, devastating settlements along a 72-kilometer stretch of the river.
For the families of those still missing, the survival of Sah and Maharjan has brought renewed hope as rescue teams continue searching the Trishuli 3A tunnel and other sites affected by the floods.
Author: MK
Source: EFE / Agencies
