Two hydropower workers were pulled alive on Friday from a tunnel buried by debris in Nepal, a rare ray of hope on the tenth day of rescue efforts after catastrophic Himalayan flooding.
Rescuers cheered as one man was pulled through a muddy opening, a video released by the energy ministry showed.
He was helped to his feet by rescuers, and later carried on the backs of the emergency workers, raising his hand as they rushed him towards a helicopter.
A photograph showed the second man caked in mud, his hands pressed together in prayer, as rescuers carried him on a stretcher.
“As long as there is breath, there is hope!” Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha said in a statement.
“Rescue operations are continuing in all the affected tunnels. Let everyone’s efforts and prayers continue. We have not lost hope.”
Rescuers called it a “miracle” after the August 26 glacial and mountain collapse on the China-Nepal border killed at least 1,325 people and left more than 5,500 missing.
“I am so happy, my heart is lighter,” Amir Maharjan, the brother of rescued worker, 45-year-old Kabir Maharjan, told AFP.
Rescued worker Sanjay Sah, 30, speaking on a video broadcast on Nepali media shortly after his rescue, said he had survived by praying during the days in the dark.
“What day is today? I was chanting maha mantra (Hindu prayers) inside,” Sah said, adding that he believed more workers may be in the tunnel.
“There were as many as 40 or 45 people… I told them and everyone to run out,” he said of the moment the disaster struck.
Both men were reported to be in stable condition in a Kathmandu hospital.
– ’24/7 heartache’ –
“He can talk, he is okay,” said Mahrajan’s wife, Hira Shobha Maharjan, saying her husband had an injured leg, and the cold had made it hard to move his hands.
“He can talk, he is okay. He has strength to talk and recognised me. At first he did not, but now he does.”
Maharjan’s sister-in-law Lakshmi Naini waited outside a hospital in Kathmandu, where he was taken by helicopter.
“It’s a miracle. I am very happy,” she told AFP. “I heard he is alive through social media, and I could not believe it.”
“I have no words to express how I feel,” said another relative, Shyam Maharjan, 45.
The rescued pair were among hundreds of hydropower workers who had been missing since the wall of mud and debris swept through the region following a vast glacial and rock collapse on a mountain on the China-Nepal border.
Searches were continuing at the Trishuli 3A tunnel where the two men were rescued, as well as multiple other sites, with at least 12 hydropower projects smashed by the floods.
Extra soldiers had been sent on Friday to boost the search operation, pulling out three dead bodies.
The government initially said it believed more than 100 workers could be alive inside multiple tunnels.
Nepali rescuers, aided by experts from India, China and South Korea, had repeatedly hit walls of hard-packed debris in their search for survivors.
Until Friday, none of the tunnel workers had been confirmed alive.
Australian rescue expert Arnold Dix, who has been advising the operation, told AFP that the rescue efforts were “back in miracle country” after a “week of 24/7 heartache”.
Earlier Friday, Dix said teams at the Trishuli 3A hydropower project had heard a faint response from inside the tunnel.
“They believe they received a faint response from inside saying, ‘hunchha’, yes or OK,” Dix, president of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association, told AFP.
He said rescuers had called into the tunnel: “Don’t worry, we are rescuing you.”
Dix said teams had dug through debris blocking the tunnel for 50 to 60 metres (164-197 feet) and had been hoping for a breakthrough at any moment.
Less than an hour later, rescuers pulled the two men to safety.
– ‘Himalayan tsunami’ –
Some Nepali families who were searching for their missing loved ones had begun holding symbolic funerals in the last few days, in a sign of dimming hope for survivors.
Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal has called the gigantic wave triggered by a rock and ice avalanche a “Himalayan tsunami”.
Floods tore through mountain districts, destroying roads, bridges and multiple hydropower dams that day.
Communities near the epicentre remain cut off.
The United Nations has warned that the “magnitude of the destruction” makes delivering aid an immense challenge, with cargo drones and porters being considered to reach isolated communities.
“Families have lost everything,” UN Nepal chief Lila Pieters Yahia said Friday, launching a $50 million appeal to help more than 84,000 people.
Nepal’s disaster authority said the number of bodies recovered stood at 1,294, with 5,053 people missing, as of nightfall on Friday.
In China, state media said 31 people had been killed and 531 were missing.
That takes the overall death toll to 1,325 people, with 5,584 missing. More than 800 foreigners from at least 34 countries are among the missing.
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