Rescuers extract four survivors from Nepal flood debris ten days after disaster

Rescues at Trishuli hydropower projects

Emergency teams in northern Nepal extracted three workers alive from submerged hydropower tunnels nine and ten days after a glacial collapse triggered flooding along the Trishuli River. On Friday, 4 September, rescuers brought out two Nepali nationals, 30-year-old mechanical foreman Sanjay Sah and 45-year-old Kabir Maharjan, from the Upper Trishuli 3A project tunnel. Video footage showed Maharjan hoisted from a ground opening onto a stretcher while Sah was carried out on a rescuer's back, his face caked in mud, before receiving oxygen. Sah stated that he recited prayers while trapped and had maintained contact with several other workers. On Saturday, 5 September, Nepali soldiers and international specialists located Chinese national Luhaitao 225 metres inside the Trishuli-1 dam tunnel. Video released by the army showed Luhaitao seated in an evacuation helicopter with a military jacket over his shoulders while a physician monitored his blood pressure.

I was in the control room, so my responsibility was to save everyone's lives. When there was such a big accident, it was not right for me to run away.

Survivors located in Betrawati and local villages

Hours after Luhaitao was brought to safety on Saturday, police rescue teams located 64-year-old Chandrika Shrestha alive inside her overturned, mud-filled home in Betrawati. Police official Iqbal Hawari confirmed that clearing teams discovered her ten days after the initial flood wave destroyed the area. Photographs released by police showed Shrestha wrapped in blankets on the ground before an air ambulance transferred her to Kathmandu for medical care. Outside hospitals and the Pashupati Aryaghat cremation site in Kathmandu, relatives reviewed identification boards and photo walls posted by authorities displaying missing individuals and deceased victims.

Scale of casualties and search operations

The August 26 disaster began when a mass of ice and rock broke off a glacier, sending water and debris downstream across the border between Nepal and China. Official figures from authorities in both countries recorded 1,375 confirmed deaths and more than 5,600 people missing. In Nepal, the disaster management authority recorded at least 1,294 deaths and 5,053 missing individuals, including 583 foreign trekkers and pilgrims. State media in China reported 31 confirmed deaths and 531 missing across the Tibet region as of Friday, 4 September.

Tunnel clearance and ongoing search efforts

Officials estimated that the flood wave trapped at least 900 people inside tunnels across six hydropower projects along the Trishuli River. Rescue crews including Nepali personnel and foreign specialists from China, India, and South Korea continue clearing debris and searching underground chambers. Nepali army teams also recovered two bodies from a tunnel at the Langtang Hydropower Station and one body from the Upper Trishuli 3A site. Nepal Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha stated that rescue teams are using all possible measures while acknowledging the uncertainty facing trapped workers.

It is impossible to predict the outcome of these efforts.