Rescuers in Nepal pulled two hydropower workers alive from an underground tunnel on Friday, providing a rare moment of hope nearly nine days after devastating floods swept through the Trishuli 3A project site, according to reports from international news outlets including the BBC and CNN.
The survivors were identified by the Kathmandu Post as mechanical foreman Sanjay Sah, 30, and mechanical supervisor Kabir Maharjan. Both men had been trapped inside the underground structures of the Trishuli 3A hydropower project since floodwaters surged through the facility on August 26.
How the Underground Survival Unfolded
According to accounts provided by the survivors to military officials and reported by the Kathmandu Post, Sah and Maharjan endured nine days cut off from the outside world under vastly different circumstances. Sah, an employee of the Nepal Electricity Authority from Saptari district, was working his shift in the project’s control room when the flood hit. He told military medical teams that his primary focus was evacuating others. “While trying to save them, I made everyone run. That cost me time. In the end, I could not get out,” Sah said, adding that he spent his time trapped underground chanting prayers.
Maharjan, a resident of Kirtipur who had worked for the Nepal Electricity Authority for more than 15 years, had traveled to the site from the Kulekhani hydropower project for routine maintenance work. His last contact with his family occurred at around 7:30 a.m. on August 26, when he told his wife, Hira Shobha, that he and his colleagues were heading underground to work after breakfast. His phone went dead shortly afterward, prompting his family to report him missing to utility headquarters the following day.
Rescue Operations and Engineering Challenges
The extraction effort required exhaustive tunneling and the digging of an emergency trench to bypass flooded sections of the facility, Australian engineer Arnold Dix told reporters. Dix, who expressed that the discovery of two alive workers in the Trishuli 3A hydropower project offers significant hope, noted that rescue teams are methodically tunneling toward the “Goldilocks zone” at the top of the 11-story power station where additional survivors might be trapped.
Rescuers heard a faint voice from within the flooded infrastructure and shouted instructions for the trapped men not to panic before breaking through. Following their extraction on Friday, both men received initial medical evaluations at the site before being airlifted to Kathmandu. Hospital officials admitted Maharjan to Birendra Sainik Hospital for intensive treatment of a leg injury, while Sah was admitted in stable condition for further medical observation and tests.
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