How two men survived nine days in a Nepal flood tunnel

Kabir Maharjan woke in a hospital after nine days trapped in a flooded tunnel and did not recognise his wife. Still confused, he asked why she had not given him a bed sooner.

Maharjan and mechanical foreman Sanjay Sah survived inside an air-filled chamber at the Upper Trishuli 3A hydropower project, according to lawmaker and veteran tunnel engineer Shri Ram Neupane, who helped lead the rescue. Their survival offered a rare note of hope after Nepal's worst flood disaster in decades.

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I have to go inside the tunnel. There won’t be any network inside.

The disaster began when a glacier collapsed above the Trishuli valley on Aug. 26. The resulting wall of mud and water killed more than 1,300 people and left thousands missing across Nepal and neighbouring Tibet. It flattened villages and submerged 12 hydropower projects, where nearly 900 workers were inside.

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Floods are normal.

At 7:30 a.m., before starting his shift, Maharjan called his wife. “I have to go inside the tunnel,” he told her. “There won’t be any network inside.” About an hour later, the glacier collapsed at Langtang Lirung mountain, around 40 km upstream. In Kathmandu, electricity officials watched the hydropower stations disappear from their control screens one after another.

Officials initially hesitated because floods are common in Nepal. The absence of the 3A station manager, who was abroad, delayed contact with the roughly 40 workers thought to be inside. At 9:15 a.m., two minutes after Maharjan's wife failed to reach him, officials issued the final order: “Evacuate!” Sah, who worked in the powerhouse control room, rushed from floor to floor. Reuters reconstructed the men's survival and rescue effort through interviews with people involved, relatives, officials and rescuers, as well as site documents and maps.

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Evacuate!