Two trapped tunnel workers rescued in Nepal

KATHMANDU

In this photo provided by the Nepal Army, soldiers rescue a worker alive from a tunnel during an ongoing operation at the Trishuli-3A hydropower project in Nepal's Rasuwa district, Friday, Sept. 4, 2026. (Nepal Army via AP)

Two hydropower workers were pulled from a tunnel buried by debris in Nepal on Sept. 6, more than a week after catastrophic flooding swept through the area, government ministers said.

Rescuers cheered as one man was pulled from a muddy opening, video released by the energy ministry showed. He was helped to his feet by rescuers.

A photograph showed the second man caked in mud, his hands pressed together in prayer, as rescuers carried him away on an orange stretcher.

The men were named as Sanjay Shah, 30, a mechanical foreman, and Kabir Maharjan, 45, a mechanical supervisor, by Home Minister Sudan Gurung.

The prime minister’s office said that Shah was in a “stable condition” and that Maharjan was in intensive care.

The two were among hundreds of hydropower workers who had been missing since a wall of mud and debris swept through the region on August 26 after 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.

Rescue teams in Nepal have recovered more than 1,250 bodies, and more than 5,000 are missing, after the gigantic wave triggered by a rock and ice avalanche roared down the China-Nepal border.

Nepali rescuers, aided by experts from India, China and South Korea, have continued searching for survivors feared trapped inside hydropower tunnels, but teams had repeatedly hit walls of hard-packed debris.