Nepal Death Toll Nears 1,000 as Rescuers Race to Find Workers Trapped in Mud-Filled Tunnels – BBC News
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The death toll in Nepal from devastating floods on the border with Tibet has reached 987, according to the country’s disaster agency. Some 3,916 people remain missing—of whom more than 600 are workers believed to be trapped in a vast network of mud-filled tunnels at hydropower sites along the Trishuli River.
Engineers have been pumping air into the tunnels, and while a team did manage to gain entry to one, it withdrew after finding no one there. “I wish we could find him. I wish he would come home,” said Anushila Bhandari, wife of missing engineer Aurus Bhandari.
Nepalese Prime Minister Balendra Shah announced on Monday that 279 people had been rescued from the sites. The rescue operation is led by an international team comprising Chinese and Nepalese military personnel, with experts from India, Korea, and Australia also involved.
“I still have a 50% hope that he is alive because there is an oxygen system inside,” said Sita Pandey, whose husband was working in the plant when the floods hit. Nepal relies heavily on hydropower, and many projects were damaged in the floods.
Rescuers began pumping air into a tunnel over the weekend, but families of those trapped express frustration with the slow pace. “The longer it takes, the more our hope dies,” said Jiban Khadka. "This operation must move much faster because every second is meaningful."
Shah noted that the floods were *"not an ordinary" event and called for international attention to "the issue of disasters we are experiencing as a result of climate change."
Another family member, Priya Kharel, awaits news of her brother Milan, an engineer in the Upper Trishuli-1 plant. “Those who returned from the hydropower site said there were people inside the tunnel," she said. "So there is hope that if the army reaches them quickly, they can be saved."
Australian engineer Arnold Dix, assisting remote search operations, described the challenge of locating the tunnels: "The actual signature of them has gone – everything is just missing. It looks like a lunar landscape."
