A Chinese national and a woman have been rescued alive in separate operations in Nepal, 10 days after devastating floods swept through the country.
The man was found inside a 225-metre tunnel at the Trishuli 3A hydropower project in Rasuwa district on Saturday. A joint team of Nepali soldiers and South Korean disaster experts brought him out before he was flown by helicopter for medical assessment.
Images released by the Nepal Army showed the survivor being carried from the tunnel by rescuers and later receiving attention from a military medic during the flight. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV also showed two rescuers carrying him to safety.
His rescue brings to three the number of workers pulled alive from the Trishuli hydropower project. Two Nepali employees, mechanical foreman Sanjay Sah and mechanical supervisor Kabir Maharjan, were rescued from the same complex on Friday after being trapped underground since the floods.
Nepal’s Home Minister, Sudhan Gurung, said the earlier rescue had renewed hopes of finding more survivors. Teams from the Nepali Army, Nepal Police, Armed Police Force and other agencies were continuing to search the tunnel system.
In the flood-hit town of Nuwakot, rescuers also pulled a woman alive from a house. Army footage showed her covered in mud as rescuers gave her bottled water and wrapped her in a grey blanket before arranging her airlift to Kathmandu.
Search operations have focused on 12 hydropower projects in Nepal, where about 900 workers are missing and around 500 are believed to remain trapped in tunnels. Specialist teams from India, China, South Korea and the United States have been helping to clear debris and inspect damaged structures.
The floods struck on 26 August and were likely triggered by the collapse of a glacier, according to Nepal’s disaster management agency. At least 1,300 people have been killed and more than 5,000 remain missing.
