Two workers rescued from Nepal hydropower tunnel 9 days after devastating floods

Nine days after a glacier collapse sent floods tearing through Nepal on August 26, rescuers pulled two men alive from a hydropower tunnel on Friday. The workers—a mechanical foreman and a mechanical supervisor—emerged from the Trishuli 3A tunnel covered in mud, their survival a small mercy in a catastrophe that has claimed over 1,200 lives across the country.

Rescuers heard voices echoing from inside the tunnel Friday morning, the first confirmation that people trapped in the darkness were still breathing. That sound changed everything. Within hours, the two men were extracted and airlifted to a hospital in Kathmandu, both in stable condition. Army spokesperson Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet confirmed the first rescue, and Nepalese lawmaker Shri Ram Neupane announced the second on Facebook. Images broadcast on local television showed the first worker being carried from the site on a rescuer's shoulder, his body caked with sediment and debris.

Amir Maharjan, brother to one of the rescued workers, told the Associated Press that his family was heading to the hospital. "I can't explain what we are feeling at the moment," he said. "We are just grateful to god." For nine days, his family had waited without knowing whether their relative had survived the initial surge of water and rock that swept through the tunnel system.

But the rescue of two men underscores the scale of what remains unknown. At least 557 workers are missing from the Trishuli 3A hydropower project alone, according to the Independent Power Producers Association of Nepal. Of those, roughly 115 are believed to be trapped inside the main tunnel—alive, possibly, but unreachable. Across twelve hydropower projects in Nepal, about 900 workers have gone missing, with approximately 500 thought to be trapped in tunnels. Officials at the rescue site said they believe some of those people may still be alive.

The floods themselves have become one of Nepal's deadliest disasters in recent memory. At least 1,259 people were killed in the country, and more than 5,000 remain missing. On the Tibetan side of the border, China reported 21 deaths and 541 missing as of late Wednesday. The glacier collapse that triggered the initial flooding remains under investigation, but the damage is already measured in thousands of lives disrupted or lost.

Communications Minister Bikram Timilsina posted on Facebook that officials remain hopeful. "We are waiting for the rescue of more and more people," he wrote. Rescue teams continue their work at the tunnel, listening for voices in the dark, moving carefully through passages that hours earlier were filled with rushing water. Whether those 115 workers trapped in the main tunnel will hear rescue teams approaching, or whether they will be found, remains uncertain. For now, the two men pulled out Friday are proof that survival is still possible—and that somewhere in the tunnels, others may be waiting.