Rescue teams in Nepal managed today to pull two workers alive from an underground tunnel in the northern part of the country, who had been trapped since a devastating flood struck the country on August 26, two ministers announced.
“We have been informed that a man has just been rescued unharmed (…) from a tunnel at Trisuli-3,” Energy Minister Biraj Bahta Shrestha initially reported. “We have just learned that a second person has been rescued,” added Interior Minister Sundan Gurun a short while later.
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
Canadian Anne Carson Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature
A Look Back at Apollon’s International Soccer Players
Dozens of rescue team members, with the help of experts dispatched by the authorities in India, China, and South Korea, have been digging nonstop for a week now in various tunnels where hundreds of workers are believed to have been buried due to the flood, at various sites where hydroelectric power plants or dams were in operation or under construction.
Immediately after the disaster, Nepalese authorities had estimated that about 100 workers were likely trapped in a tunnel at the Trishuli-3 project.
Nepal Flash Floods – The Epitome of Human Resilience
Advertisement: Two workers pulled alive from the Trishuli-3A hydropower tunnel on September 4, 2026, were Sanjay Shah, a mechanical foreman from Saptari who was on shift duty, and Kabir Maharjan, a mechanical supervisor from Kathmandu who had… https://t.co/bBcLGJfTux pic.twitter.com/CQLgTcB17i
— India Strikes YT
(@IndiaStrikes_) September 4, 2026
As of today, search and rescue teams had managed to find nothing but bodies in tunnels filled with water and mud, after clearing a path with great difficulty, often using explosives and heavy machinery.
A veritable wall of water, ice, and debris swept through valleys in the region along the Nepal-China border. The most recent official death toll stands at at least 1,280 dead and more than 5,600 missing.
Among those missing are more than 900 employees or workers at Nepal’s hydroelectric power plants.
The government in Kathmandu released photos this morning of the two workers, Sanjay Sha and Kabir Mahajan, who were carried out on stretchers by rescuers wearing helmets.
“I’m so happy—it’s a huge relief,” said Amir Maharzhan, the brother of one of the rescued men, who is still unable to move his limbs, in a statement to Agence France-Presse.
Shortly after the official announcement of the rescue of the two workers, Arnold Dix, an Australian specialist in deep-water rescue operations who is participating in the rescue efforts, an Australian, told AFP that this was the first time communication with survivors had been established.
The two survivors were expected to be transported as soon as possible to a hospital in the capital, Kathmandu, according to the Minister of Energy.
Source: CNA
