Nepal is conducting an urgent and intensified search for approximately 898 workers who remain missing after recent floods severely impacted several hydropower projects along its rivers, with a particular focus on rescuing those believed to be trapped within the tunnels of the Trishuli 3A and 3B hydropower plants. The rescue operations are facing substantial challenges due to extensive debris and mud blocking tunnel access, requiring specialized equipment and techniques, and are being supported by international experts from China and India. Despite the deployment of thousands of personnel and volunteers, families of the missing workers are growing increasingly concerned about the pace of the rescue efforts amidst the ongoing disaster.

Nepal is conducting an urgent and intensified search for approximately 898 workers who remain missing after recent floods severely impacted several hydropower projects along its rivers, with a particular focus on rescuing those believed to be trapped within the tunnels of the Trishuli 3A and 3B hydropower plants. The rescue operations are facing substantial challenges due to extensive debris and mud blocking tunnel access, requiring specialized equipment and techniques, and are being supported by international experts from China and India. Despite the deployment of thousands of personnel and volunteers, families of the missing workers are growing increasingly concerned about the pace of the rescue efforts amidst the ongoing disaster.

Nepal is conducting an urgent and intensified search for approximately 898 workers who remain missing after recent floods severely impacted several hydropower projects along its rivers, with a particular focus on rescuing those believed to be trapped within the tunnels of the Trishuli 3A and 3B hydropower plants. The rescue operations are facing substantial challenges due to extensive debris and mud blocking tunnel access, requiring specialized equipment and techniques, and are being supported by international experts from China and India. Despite the deployment of thousands of personnel and volunteers, families of the missing workers are growing increasingly concerned about the pace of the rescue efforts amidst the ongoing disaster.

Nepal has intensified its search for survivors who may be trapped at several hydropower projects located on ist rivers including the Trishuli.

Authorities said that the search was now of the “highest priority” as around 898 hydropower workers are still missing since the flood on Wednesday.

According to Nepal’s Minister of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, a massive effort is underway to bore down to tunnels at the Trishuli 3A and 3B hydropower plants.

Around 100 workers are believed to be trapped inside the Trishuli 3A hydropower station, which is one of jut 27 such facilities.

Nepal’s Independent Power Producers’ Association (IPPAN) released a list  of the number of persons missing at each of the projects on Saturday.

Around 576 workers are trapped at Upper Trishuli-1;  122 at Upper Trishuli-3B; 93 at Rasuwagadhi Hydropower Project; 42 each at Upper Trishuli-3A and Langtang River; eight at Chilime; 7 at Melung River.

As of August 29, the number stood at 898.

Around 4 people are trapped in the Rasuwa-Bhotekoshi project, 2 at Middle Trishuli Ganga and one each at the Trishuli Hydropower Project and Devighat Hydropower Project

On Monday morning, rescuers found the entrance to the tunnel at the Upper Trishuli-3A project. On Sunday, the team had drilled a two-foot-wide hole through the exterior of the tunnel. They “descended through the opening using ropes and called out to those trapped inside, but received no response,” the prime minister’s office said on Sunday.

The rescue teams are being helped by both Chinese and Indian experts. The Indian team is monitoring the  Chilime and Langtang areas by helicopter, while the Chinese team has already searched the tunnel of the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project, according to a ministry news release.  

They have been working overnight to reach those trapped inside the tunnels, as they were blocked by mud and debris brought in by the deluge.

Videos of the rescue efforts showed rescue teams using earth-moving equipment and shovelling mud and rocks.

“A large amount of debris has been deposited, and that is posing us a big challenge to open the tunnels,” Nepal Army Spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet told Reuters. “Our main focus is on opening the tunnels.”

On Sunday, rescue operators pumped air into the tunnels so that the they could enter them.

Families of missing workers, however, say that the rescue efforts are taking time.

"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 trapped inside the plant, told Nepali newspaper Kantipur.

Another family member of a worker, Sita Pandey, said, "I still have a 50% hope that he is alive because there is an oxygen system inside," "But with every hour that passes, that hope becomes thinner."

Nepal authorities said that about 903 persons had been killed and that 4,247, including the 900 at the hydropower projects, remain missing as of Sunday night.

Emergency workers have rescued 10,451 people, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority added.

Nepal Prime Minister Balen Shah said that nearly 21,000 security personnel were involved in ​the rescue operations, besides civilian workers and volunteers.

On the Chinese side, 16 people were killed in Gyirong County and 546 were missing, with 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries who were unaccounted for in Tibet.

China’s state-run CCTV reported that 2,100 rescue workers were working and using life-detection equipment to look for the missing. The Chinese government also allocated at least $33 million to support relief efforts. 

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