Two rescued in Nepal – nine days after the landslide
One of the rescued is carried away from the tunnel at a hydroelectric power plant in Rasuwa, Nepal, on Friday. Photo: Nepal's army via AP/TT
Two men have been pulled alive from a tunnel at a flooded hydroelectric power plant in Nepal. Nine days after the devastating mudslide, the rescue is described as a miracle.
In a video released by the Nepalese army, one man, Sanjay Shah, is seen being pulled out of a narrow, dark entrance to the tunnel. Images then show how a second man, Kabir Maharjan, is carried away on a stretcher – covered in mud and with his hands clasped in prayer. Both have now been flown for treatment in the capital Kathmandu.
– I am so happy, says Kabir Maharjan's brother to the AFP news agency.
The men – two of several hundred hydropower workers missing since the disaster on August 26 – are said to have been trapped 170 metres (550 feet) inside the tunnel. Now, hope has been raised that more may be rescued.
“We are waiting for more people to be rescued,” Nepal’s Minister of Communications Bikram Timilsina wrote on Facebook.
Villages, roads, bridges and at least a dozen hydropower projects were buried in mud and debris when a huge mass of rock and ice collapsed in the Himalayas, near the Nepal-Tibet border, sending a powerful wave downstream through the Bhote Koshi River.
At least 1,200 people have been confirmed dead and more than 5,000 are missing. Among the missing are more than 500 foreign tourists and pilgrims.
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