Phoenix 24
Extraordinary rescues preserve hope as thousands of families await news.
RASUWA, NEPAL
Rescue teams have found two people alive in separate operations ten days after a wall of ice, rock and mud devastated communities near Nepal’s border with Tibet. Chinese worker Lu Haitao was pulled from a tunnel at the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project, while Chandika Kumari Shrestha was rescued from her flooded home in Betrawati.
Lu had remained inside a 225-metre tunnel since the disaster struck on August 26. A joint team of Nepalese military personnel and South Korean specialists reached him after navigating debris and unstable underground conditions. He was evacuated by helicopter with mild hypothermia but no visible injuries, and medical personnel reported that his vital signs were stable.
Shrestha was discovered covered in mud inside a confined section of her damaged home. Rescuers gave her water before extracting her and transferring her to Kathmandu for treatment. Their survival follows the rescue of two Nepalese hydropower workers from another tunnel one day earlier, bringing renewed urgency to operations across the affected valley.
Search efforts are concentrating on 12 damaged hydropower projects, where approximately 900 workers remain missing and hundreds may be trapped underground. Teams from Nepal, China, India, South Korea and the United States are searching tunnels, collapsed buildings and enormous fields of debris. Accounts from relatives and earlier survivors suggest that groups of workers may have found temporary refuge inside some underground structures, but those reports remain unconfirmed.
Nepalese authorities have reported more than 1,300 deaths and nearly 4,900 missing people, including hundreds of foreign nationals. China has separately recorded 31 deaths and more than 500 missing in Tibet. The scale of the destruction continues to reduce the probability of further rescues, yet finding four people alive after nine and ten days demonstrates why operations cannot rely solely on statistical expectations.
La verdad es estructura, no ruido. / Truth is structure, not noise.