Ten Days in Darkness, Then Two Men Walked Back into the Light

Kabir Maharjan could not speak when rescuers carried him from the Upper Trishuli 3A hydropower tunnel. From his stretcher, with tears blurring his vision, he nodded and folded his hands in a namaste.

The rescue came on the 10th day of flooding in Rasuwa, after more than 72 hours of exhausting work inside a dark, muddy and dangerous passage. Rescuers had already pulled Sanjay Sah alive from the tunnel after nine days trapped underground. Their survival brought a burst of relief, but the whereabouts of dozens of others remained unknown.

Sah initially struggled to speak after emerging. He later told Nepali Army personnel that four or five people might still be inside. At the Upper Trishuli 3A project, he worked as a mechanical foreman for the Nepal Electricity Authority and had been on duty in the control room when the incident occurred on August 26.

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I was the last to leave because I had been helping others escape after the accident, and ultimately could not get out myself.

Sah said he had warned people to escape after an accident at the main dam. He stayed behind to help them, he said, and ultimately lost his own chance to get out. “I was the last to leave because I had been helping others escape after the accident, and ultimately could not get out myself.”

His family in Tilathi, Saptari, had lived without sleep since he disappeared, and the kitchen stove had not been lit. When relatives called with news of his rescue, his parents travelled to Kathmandu. After his condition stabilized at a Nepali Army facility in Nuwakot, Sah recalled surviving the 10 days by chanting a mantra. The rescue celebrations continued as teams searched for anyone else who might still be alive.

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I told everyone that there had been an accident at the main dam and asked them all to escape.