The death toll from devastating floods in Nepal has surpassed 1,000, with rescuers racing against time to locate more than 3,900 people still reported missing.
More than 600 of those missing are believed to be workers trapped inside mud-filled tunnels at hydropower projects along the Trishuli River.
Engineers have been pumping oxygen into some of the tunnels in an effort to keep survivors alive. One rescue team managed to enter a tunnel connected to a hydropower site on Monday but was forced to withdraw after finding no one inside.
“I wish we could find him. I wish he would come home,” Anushila Bhandari, wife of Aurus Bhandari, a 33-year-old engineer missing on a project site, told BBC Nepali.
Nepalese Prime Minister Balendra Shah said 279 people had so far been rescued from the affected hydropower sites.
The rescue effort involves an international team, with Chinese and Nepalese military personnel leading operations. Experts from India, Korea and Australia are also providing assistance.
Rescuers Use Explosives To Reach Trapped Workers
Nepal Army personnel have turned to explosives and heavy equipment to break through hillsides and debris blocking access to the tunnels.
Each hydropower facility employs hundreds of people, including local workers, migrant labourers and highly skilled engineers.
Families of those missing continue to hold on to the possibility that their loved ones are still alive.
“I still have a 50% hope that he is alive because there is an oxygen system inside,” Sita Pandey, whose husband was working in the plant when the floods hit, told Nepalese daily Kantipur.
Nepal depends heavily on hydropower and has spent years developing projects along its mountainous river systems. Authorities said at least 11 hydropower projects that were either completed or under construction were damaged by the floods.
Rescuers began pumping air into one tunnel over the weekend, although relatives of those trapped have questioned why the effort did not begin sooner.
A rescue team later gained access to a tunnel leading to one of the hydropower plants but pulled back after finding no survivors.
“The longer it takes, the more our hope dies. This operation must move much faster because every second is meaningful to us,” Jiban Khadka, whose relative is also trapped inside the plant, told Kantipur.
“It’s a frustratingly slow operation,” Khadka added.
Shah said rescue efforts had been “intensified”, describing the floods as “not an ordinary” event.
“This incident indicates that the risks we face in the Himalayan region are increasing alongside climate change.
“It is now time for us to strongly raise with the international community the issue of the disasters we are experiencing as a result of climate change,” Shah wrote in a Facebook post late on Monday.
Families Wait For News Of Missing Relatives
Priya Kharel is another relative anxiously waiting for information. Her brother, Milan, was working as an engineer at the Upper Trishuli-1 plant when the floods struck.
“Those who returned from the hydropower site said there were people inside the tunnel,” she told BBC News Nepali. “So there is hope that if the army reaches them quickly, they can be saved.”
Australian engineer Arnold Dix, who has been assisting Nepalese authorities remotely with the underground search, said the scale of destruction had made locating the tunnels extremely difficult.
“The actual signature of them has gone – everything is just missing. It looks like a lunar landscape,” he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One.
Dix explained that once rescuers identify the locations of the power stations, they can determine how best to reach them, with operations typically involving digging and “blasting boulders”.
“There’s boulders bigger than houses. I’ve never seen that before in my life. It’s just an extraordinary operation,” the former head of the International Tunnelling Association said.
Despite the enormous challenges, Dix said there was still reason to hope for workers trapped underground, as tunnels may have provided some protection from the devastating floodwaters above.
Only A Small Number Of Bodies Identified
The disaster has also created a major challenge in identifying the dead.
A spokesperson from Nepal’s Ministry of Health told BBC Nepali that only 4% of the 900 bodies recovered so far had been identified.
In Chitwan, far downstream from the areas initially hit by the floods, authorities have begun temporary burials after nearly 300 bodies were carried to the riverbanks.
The smell of decay has spread through the area as workers wearing white personal protective equipment, including masks, transport unidentified bodies in trucks.
Over the weekend, a large section of forest outside the city was dug up, with medical workers and volunteers collecting DNA samples from unidentified remains.
Ganesh Aryaal, the chief district officer, said families would still be able to recover their relatives’ remains after DNA testing establishes their identities.
“We don’t have enough freezers here… We had to choose this last alternative of temporary burial system. We are really overwhelmed,” he said.
Tibet Records Additional Deaths
Across the border in Tibet, the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama, regarded as the second-highest spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism, held a memorial service as rescue teams continued working through waist-deep mud.
Chinese state media puts the death toll in Tibet at 16, with another 546 people reported missing.
Information from the region remains limited, with footage and reports about the floods heavily controlled in China.
State media reported that the once-busy border crossing with Nepal had been devastated, with the base of a single water tower reportedly the only structure still standing.
Chinese authorities have also imposed “administrative penalties” on people who posted online speculation suggesting the actual casualty figures could be significantly higher than officially reported.
In Nepal, authorities have similarly ordered the removal of online material they consider misinformation about the floods.
With thousands still missing and rescue teams struggling through enormous quantities of mud and debris, families across the affected region continue to wait for news of their loved ones.
