Overview
- Rescuers pulled Kabir Maharjan and Sanjay Sah alive from about 170 metres inside the Upper Trishuli 3A hydropower tunnel on Friday, Sept. 4, and airlifted them to hospital with Maharjan in critical condition and Sah stable.
- The Nepal Army and Armed Police Force led the operation using drilling, holing, compressors, excavators and controlled blasting after crews reported hearing voices and establishing faint communication with people inside the tunnel.
- The rescue has renewed hope even as official tallies show more than 1,250 people dead and several thousand still missing, with hundreds of hydropower workers uncontacted across multiple damaged projects.
- Teams continue complex searches hampered by blocked tunnel entrances, hard-packed debris, damaged roads, bad weather and overwhelmed mortuary capacity while foreign experts and countries including Australia, China and India provide equipment and specialists.
- Nepal’s disaster authority estimates billions of rupees in infrastructure and housing losses and says about 20,000 houses will need rebuilding, making the operation a transition from urgent rescue to extended forensic identification and reconstruction work.