Rescue workers have pulled out two workers alive from a tunnel in Nepal, nine days after they were trapped by floods. They had been stranded at the Trishuli-3A hydropower plant following devastating flash floods and landslides in the Himalayan region. They were rescued from a four-kilometer-long tunnel. Rescuers reported hearing the voices of other people from inside the tunnel, raising hopes that more survivors could be found. This dramatic success followed an overnight operation conducted under extremely dangerous and adverse conditions. CNN Online reported the story.
Bipin Regmi, the police chief of the flood-hit Nuwakot district, stated that rescuers heard human voices while drilling into the tunnel to search for 42 missing workers. Subsequently, the two men were pulled out one by one through a narrow opening, and medical teams were immediately dispatched to treat them. The death toll across Nepal has already surpassed 1,200 due to flash floods that brought down rock and mud—thick as cement. The missing include numerous foreign workers from China, South Korea, and India, for whom hopes of survival had been fading.
Colonel Parikshit Mehra, leading the Indian Army rescue team at the site, noted that the first 48 hours are usually the most critical in such tunnel rescue operations. He explained that after spending 24 to 25 hours in pitch darkness, people become disoriented, and hallucinations often set in after 48 hours. However, defying all odds, he described the rescue of these two workers alive after nine long days as a miraculous success. Efforts to rescue other workers trapped deeper within the tunnel have now been intensified.
