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Two hydropower workers were pulled alive from a tunnel buried by debris in Nepal on Friday, marking the first confirmed survivors found since catastrophic Himalayan flooding struck the country 10 days earlier.
Rescuers cheered as one man was pulled through a muddy opening at the Trishuli 3A hydropower project, a tunnel site in central Nepal, according to a video released by the country's energy ministry. He was helped to his feet by rescuers before being carried on their backs toward a waiting helicopter, raising his hand as he was taken away.
A second man was carried out on a stretcher, his hands pressed together in prayer and his body caked in mud, according to a photograph distributed by officials.
"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."
The rescued individuals were identified by Home Minister Sudan Gurung as mechanical foreman Sanjay Shah, 30, and mechanical supervisor Kabir Maharjan, 45. Nepal's prime minister's office reported that Shah is stable, while Maharjan is in intensive care.
Rescuers described the outcome as a "miracle" after a glacial and mountain collapse on the China-Nepal border on Aug. 26 sent a wall of mud and debris through the region, an event Nepal's Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal called a "Himalayan tsunami." The disaster has killed at least 1,280 people and left more than 5,600 missing across Nepal and China, according to official figures cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Kabir Maharjan's brother, Amir Maharjan, said the family had followed the search closely. "I am so happy, my heart is lighter," he told AFP.
Lakshmi Naini, who said she is Kabir Maharjan's sister-in-law, waited outside a hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal's capital, where he was flown 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."
Another relative, Shyam Maharjan, 45, said he had "no words to express how I feel."
The two men were among hundreds of hydropower workers reported missing since the Aug. 26 flooding, which the Nepali government said may have left more than 100 workers alive inside multiple tunnels in the immediate aftermath. Nepali rescue teams, supported by experts from India, China and South Korea, had repeatedly struck hard-packed debris while searching for survivors at the Trishuli 3A site and other locations, where at least 12 hydropower projects were damaged.
Until Friday, no tunnel workers had been confirmed alive since the disaster began.
Arnold Dix, an Australian tunnelling expert who has been supporting the operation remotely, told AFP the rescue effort was "back in miracle country" following a "week of 24/7 heartache." Dix, president of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association, said he was en route to Nepal to join the operation after teams at Trishuli 3A reported hearing what they believed was a faint response from inside the tunnel. "They believe they received a faint response from inside saying, 'hunchha,' yes or OK," Dix said, adding that rescuers had called into the tunnel: "Don't worry, we are rescuing you." Less than an hour later, the two men were pulled to safety.
Dix previously advised on a 2023 rescue in which all 41 Indian workers trapped inside a collapsed road tunnel in the Himalayas were freed alive. He said crews in Nepal had dug through 50 to 60 meters (164-196 feet) of debris blocking the tunnel before Friday's breakthrough.
Some families searching for missing relatives had begun holding symbolic funerals in recent days as hope for further survivors faded. Flooding on Aug. 26 destroyed roads, bridges and multiple hydropower dams in mountain districts, and AFP journalists flying over the affected valley on Thursday saw entire sections of settlements swept away.
The United Nations has said the scale of destruction is complicating aid delivery, with cargo drones and porters being considered to reach communities that remain cut off. "Access has been very, very, very difficult," Lila Pieters Yahia, the U.N.'s representative in Nepal, said.
Nepal's disaster authority has recorded 1,259 bodies and 5,083 people missing, while Chinese state media report 21 deaths and 541 people missing on its side of the border, bringing the combined toll to 1,280 dead and 5,624 missing. More than 800 foreign nationals from at least 34 countries, including tourists and pilgrims, are among those unaccounted for in Nepal and Tibet.
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