By Gopal Sharma and Saurabh Sharma
KATHMANDU, Sept 4 (Reuters) – Two people were pulled out alive on Friday from a tunnel linked to a hydropower station on the Trishuli River in Nepal, nine days after an ice, rock and mud slide swept through its valley, killing more than 1,200 people and displacing tens of thousands.
Officials and rescue workers believe the August 26 collapse of a glacier on the upper reaches of the Trishuli River trapped at least 900 people in tunnels related to six hydropower projects along the river.
At least 1,252 people were killed in Nepal as houses, streets and schools in towns and villages near the border with China’s Tibet were swept away. More than 4,200 people are still missing and thousands more displaced.
China has put the death toll in Tibet at 21, with 541 others listed as missing.
The two workers pulled from the tunnel at the Upper Trishuli 3A Hydropower Station are the first to be rescued from the hydropower projects and have been taken to an army hospital in the capital Kathmandu. A small group had managed to escape from another tunnel hours after the disaster struck.
The workers rescued on Friday were Sanjay Sah, a mechanical foreman, and Kabir Maharjan, a mechanical supervisor, Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha’s office said in a statement.
Videos and photos released by Nepali authorities showed Maharjan being pulled out of a hole in the ground amid cheering bystanders and put on a stretcher.
The other man, Sah, was carried out on the back of a worker to a rescue tent, his face covered in mud.
In one of the videos, a team of army doctors attended to Sah at a tent near the tunnel before he was taken to hospital, fitting what appeared to be an oxygen mask around his mouth and checking his vitals.
“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 (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 in its reaches.
Maharjan cannot move his hands and legs but Sah’s injuries are not critical, an aide to the energy minister told Reuters.
Amir Maharjan, Kabir’s brother, said he has not received any news officially but has 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 are in the intensive care unit, a source from the army hospital where they were taken told Reuters, with their vital signs stable.
A team of experts in a WhatsApp group was guiding rescue workers in the search at the hydropower projects in what 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 on Friday, said their rescue was a miracle and raised the hope of finding more survivors.
FLOOD LOSSES ESTIMATED AT $2.56 BILLION
Property, housing and infrastructure worth at least 387.5 billion Nepalese rupees ($2.56 billion) was lost in last week’s catastrophe, Dharma Raj Upreti, chief of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, said on Friday.
Nepal will need to rebuild around 20,000 houses in flood-ravaged areas, Upreti said on Thursday, with at least 7,500 of those homes destroyed.
At least 583 foreign nationals were missing in the floods, Nepal said on 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” for the welfare of its 36 missing citizens.
(Reporting by Gopal Sharma and Saurabh Sharma; Writing by Tom Hogue; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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