Nepal-China floods latest: Two more people rescued in Nepal 10 days after devastating floods
Watch as two men are pulled alive from Nepal tunnel nine days after floods
Nine days after flash flooding washed away valleys and buried entire villages, rescue workers in Nepal had started to shift their operations from finding survivors to recovering bodies.
But then on Friday morning, at the Trishuli 3A hydropower plant, they heard an unmistakeable sound: “Okay.”
In a dramatic breakthrough for what has been a desperate, round-the-clock rescue effort in treacherous conditions, two men were pulled from an underground chamber of the hydropower plant, where Nepali rescue crews had been boring in search of 42 missing workers.
Rescuers had earlier reported hearing voices after days of a complex search and clearing mission, according to Bipin Regmi, police chief in the flood-hit district of Nuwakot.
Through a patchwork of grey debris, the two men emerged.
Carried out on a rescuer’s back, Sanjay Sah raised his hand in a wave before resting his head on the Nepal Army rescuer’s helmet. His first question was: “What day is it?”
The second man, Kabir Maharjan, was placed on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over his face.
That moment was the culmination of nine days of work that started with almost nothing to go on. After the August 26 disaster, the Trishuli 3A power station was unrecognizable and initially Nepali rescuers had no idea where to start digging.
To find a way in, the team had to work off satellite data, as-built drawings of the power station and topographic information, according to Arnold Dix, a geologist advising Nepali rescuers on the ground.
That’s how they narrowed down the location of the tunnel least likely to have collapsed – an area Dix calls the “Goldilocks zone.”