Nepal electricity authority official Amhsu Kiran Shahi said there is a high chance that 46 workers trapped for about a week inside a room-like structure at the Rasuwagadhi hydropower plant may still be alive. He said the workers were believed to have food and water in the structure.
Rescue teams were trying to reach the tunnel on Wednesday after flash floods triggered by a glacial collapse devastated the mountainous region near Nepal’s border with Tibet.
Why rescuers are focusing on hydropower tunnels
Rescue operations have centred on tunnels linked to hydroelectric projects because some contain rooms or other spaces where workers may have remained cut off from floodwater and debris. Nepali, Indian and Chinese teams were digging to find survivors, with experts from South Korea and Australia also assisting, according to Shahi. For additional context, see “Nepal flood disaster leaves thousands missing as rescue access remains difficult”.
The Rasuwagadhi project is a 111-megawatt facility in the hard-hit Rasuwa district, in a mountain valley about 5km from the border. Shahi said it was the only project where rescuers believed they could walk through the tunnel, after an army attempt three days earlier failed to locate the room.
What we know now
- Nepali authorities have rescued 279 people from hydropower projects affected by the floods.
- At least 639 people remained missing, while at least 1,204 deaths had been confirmed.
- More than 4,200 people remained missing across the disaster zone.
- Two hydropower sites, involving about 90 missing people, were considered the strongest prospects for finding survivors because of air inside the tunnels.
Other sites and the scale of the disaster
At the Upper Trishuli 3A hydropower facility, rescue workers took almost six days to locate tunnels because of thick mud. Shahi said teams were trying to break into a tunnel where they had been told a dry space existed. Nepali army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet said rescuers were also searching tunnels at other flood-hit locations. A related part of this story is covered in “Glacial collapse leaves at least 165 dead after Nepal-Tibet flood”.
The floods carried ice, rock, mud and debris through towns and valleys along the border with China. A preliminary UN Development Programme estimate put the volume of debris at 2.2m tonnes. Officials said the chance of finding survivors elsewhere was declining, but rescue operations continued.
What happens next
Rescuers were going back into the Rasuwagadhi tunnel and trying to break into the Upper Trishuli 3A tunnel as searches continued at four hydropower projects. The development of this issue can be followed in “Why deadly floods devastated India’s Upper Assam”.
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