Two people were pulled alive from a tunnel Friday at a hydropower project on Nepal’s Trishuli River, nine days after an ice, rock and mudslide tore through the river valley, killing more than 1,200 people and displacing tens of thousands.
Officials and rescue workers believe the Aug. 26 collapse of a glacier in the upper reaches of the Trishuli River trapped at least 900 people inside tunnels serving six hydropower projects along the river.
At least 1,252 people were killed in Nepal after homes, roads and schools in towns and villages near the border with China’s Tibet region were swept away. More than 4,200 people remain missing, while thousands of others have been displaced.
China has reported 21 deaths in Tibet, with another 541 people listed as missing.
The two workers rescued Friday from a tunnel at the Upper Trishuli 3A Hydropower Station were the first people pulled alive from the hydropower projects. They were taken to an army hospital in the capital, Kathmandu, for treatment.
A small group of workers had managed to escape from another tunnel in the hours after the disaster struck, but no others had been rescued from the hydropower sites until Friday.
The workers rescued Friday were Sanjay Sah, a mechanical foreman, and Kabir Maharjan, a mechanical supervisor, the office of Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha said in a statement.
Videos and photos released by Nepali authorities showed Maharjan being pulled out of a hole in the ground amid cheers from bystanders and placed on a stretcher.
Sah was carried on the back of a worker to a rescue tent, his face covered in mud.
In one video, a team of army doctors attended to Sah at a tent near the tunnel before he was taken to a hospital. They fitted what appeared to be an oxygen mask around his mouth and checked his vital signs.
“His name is Sanjay Sah and he was working in mechanical control room. The vital parameters look normal,” an army official said.
Sah told rescuers he spent time reciting mantras, or verses from a prayer, while he was trapped, according to The Kathmandu Post. He said three or four more people could be alive in the tunnel, and possibly more deeper inside.
Maharjan cannot move his hands and legs, while Sah’s injuries are not critical, an aide to the energy minister told Reuters.
Amir Maharjan, Kabir’s brother, said he had not received any official news but had been told to go to the hospital.
“I have been hearing from the news that my brother has been found. The entire family is very happy,” Amir said.
Both survivors were in the intensive care unit, a source at the army hospital where they were taken told Reuters, adding that their vital signs were stable.
A team of experts in a WhatsApp group was guiding rescue workers in the search at the hydropower projects, which has become a valuable tool alongside helicopters and heavy machinery in the race to find survivors.
More search and rescue operations were underway around the Upper Trishuli 3A project, the Nepali army said. Rescue efforts were being led by the army and police, with assistance from experts from India, South Korea and China.
Dhan Bahadur Tamang, who earlier escaped from a tunnel linked to the Upper Trishuli 1 hydropower project upriver from where the two men were pulled out Friday, said their rescue was a miracle and raised hopes of finding more survivors.
Property, housing and infrastructure worth at least 387.5 billion Nepalese rupees ($2.56 billion) were lost in last week’s catastrophe, Dharma Raj Upreti, chief of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, said Friday.
Nepal will need to rebuild around 20,000 houses in flood-ravaged areas, Upreti said Thursday, with at least 7,500 of those homes destroyed.
At least 583 foreign nationals were missing in the floods, Nepal said Thursday, many of them pilgrims and trekkers.
Australian disaster response specialists left for Nepal on Friday to join the search for survivors, as the government there expressed “serious concerns” about the welfare of its 36 missing citizens.
