Two Workers Pulled Alive From Nepal Tunnel After Nine Days Trapped

THE RESCUE

Sanjay Sah, 30, a mechanical foreman, and Kabir Maharjan, 45, a mechanical supervisor, were pulled out alive from the Trishuli-3A hydropower project tunnel in Rasuwa early on September 4, nine days after they were trapped underground by Nepal's glacier-collapse floods. A joint task force from the Nepali Army and the Armed Police Force had been working through flooded, debris-choked sections of the tunnel since the disaster struck on August 26, and the breakthrough came after rescuers reported hearing voices from deep inside the structure.

HOW THEY GOT THEM OUT

The operation that reached Sah and Maharjan involved roughly 75 army personnel and 18 police officers working in rotating shifts through the wreckage. Rescuers first had to drain water and clear loosened rock from the tunnel, then blew a hole through part of the roof to open an access point closer to where the men were trapped. From there, the final stretch came down to hand work: crawling on their bellies through the narrowest sections and digging with their fingers to clear the last of the debris around the two men.

HIS ACCOUNT

Sah said he felt responsible for the others trapped with him because he had been in the tunnel's control room when the flood hit, and described chanting mantras through the nine days underground to keep himself calm. Both men were airlifted to Birendra Army Hospital in Kathmandu. Sah was listed in stable condition, while Maharjan, who spent longer buried deeper in the tunnel, was taken into intensive care in critical condition.

THE WIDER DISASTER

The two men were trapped when a glacier collapsed in the upper reaches of the Trishuli River on August 26, sending a wall of water and debris down the valley and into tunnels linked to six hydropower projects along the river. At least 557 workers are listed missing from the Trishuli-3A project alone, with roughly 115 believed to have been trapped in the main tunnel specifically. Many of the dead and missing are migrant laborers who traveled to Rasuwa for construction work on the hydropower plants, a detail that has fed into a wider conversation in Nepal about evacuation planning and worker safety at hydropower sites built along glacier-fed, flood-prone rivers.

WHAT'S NEXT

At least one survivor pulled from the tunnel told rescuers that more people may still be alive inside, and officials have pointed to Sah and Maharjan surviving nine days as reason to keep the operation classified as a search-and-rescue mission rather than shifting into recovery. No official timeline has been given for when the search will end. With more than 550 people still unaccounted for from a single hydropower project, the full human cost of the flood is still being counted more than two weeks after the water itself receded.