Nepal rescuers blast hillside in desperate race to reach hundreds missing inside flooded hydropower tunnels
By SCN NEWS
KATHMANDU — Nepalese soldiers used controlled explosives to blast through a Himalayan hillside on Monday as rescuers intensified a race to reach hundreds of hydropower workers feared trapped behind enormous deposits of mud, rock and flood debris, nearly five days after a catastrophic glacier-related flood devastated the Nepal-Tibet border region. With conventional tunnel entrances blocked or buried, teams are excavating alternative access points, pumping air underground and using specialist tunnel crews from China and India as families wait for any indication that their relatives survived.
Nepal's disaster authorities said 933 workers were missing from 11 hydropower projects in the badly hit Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts, including hundreds believed to have been working in underground tunnels and power facilities when Wednesday's torrent struck. The Nepali Army said search teams were using controlled blasts, excavators and searchlights to remove water, mud and rock. Three bodies had been recovered after teams entered two tunnels, but large sections remained inaccessible.
The physical challenge is extraordinary. The flood carried ice, rock, water and sediment through narrow Himalayan valleys, burying tunnel entrances beneath enormous debris deposits and destroying roads and bridges needed to move rescue machinery. Army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet said the volume of material deposited around the tunnels was the main obstacle confronting rescuers. Heavy equipment has been operating through the night under floodlights while soldiers descend into excavated pits searching for openings into the underground network.
At the 60-megawatt Upper Trishuli-3A project, one of the most urgent operations, army engineers have begun blasting into the hillside. Prime Minister Balendra Shah said 42 workers were estimated missing there, with a 90-member rescue team reaching the main section of one tunnel by Sunday. Rescuers had previously drilled an opening into the mud-covered structure and pumped air inside, hoping that anyone who survived the initial flooding could remain alive in an isolated section of the underground complex.
Other sites present an even larger challenge. At the Upper Trishuli-3B project, 122 people are feared missing, with Nepalese soldiers and electricity authority personnel working alongside Chinese specialists. At Upper Trishuli-1, a 216-MW project backed by South Korean investors and the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, around 250 people were rescued over the weekend, while Chinese and South Korean teams continued searching the devastated complex. Indian specialists are supporting operations at the Chilime and Langtang Khola projects using pumps, excavators and aerial reconnaissance.
For families, however, technical progress is being measured against a rapidly advancing clock. Sita Pandey, whose husband is believed trapped at Upper Trishuli-3A, told Nepalese media she still held hope because the underground facility had an oxygen system. Another relative, Jiban Khadka, warned that every delay was reducing families' hope of finding workers alive. Relatives have gathered around government offices and rescue areas seeking survivor lists, information about tunnel conditions and evidence that teams have established contact with those underground.
There are reasons rescuers have not abandoned the possibility of survival. At least 279 people have been rescued from hydropower sites, according to the prime minister, while survivors have described extraordinary escapes from tunnels during the initial disaster. Some workers clung to overhead metal rungs for hours as floodwater and debris surged beneath them; others escaped toward higher ground. Those accounts demonstrate that pockets inside the vast underground facilities may have remained survivable even after the initial torrent, although conditions in sections rescuers have not reached remain unknown.
But Monday also brought increasingly grim evidence. Nine Chinese tunnel specialists working with Nepalese teams completed a search covering approximately 2.5 kilometres inside one tunnel without detecting signs of life, according to a rescuer quoted in footage distributed by Reuters. Elsewhere, teams have encountered tunnels filled with mud or water, and operations have repeatedly been interrupted by bad weather, unstable slopes and fears that newly formed or overflowing lakes upstream could unleash further flooding.
The broader disaster continues to expand. Nepalese authorities reported Monday that 903 people had been confirmed dead and 4,247 remained missing, including the hydropower workers. Another 16 people were reported dead and 546 missing across the border in China's Gyirong County. Nepal's Foreign Ministry said about 590 foreign nationals from 39 countries remained missing, while more than 10,000 people had been rescued from flood-hit areas.
Nearly 21,000 Nepalese security personnel have been mobilized, while Kathmandu has turned specifically to China and India for expertise in underground rescue. That specialization matters because Nepal's hydropower boom has created extensive tunnel networks through steep Himalayan terrain: water is diverted through mountains to exploit large elevation drops for electricity generation. When the flood struck, those same tunnels that make Himalayan hydropower possible became potential underground traps for hundreds of engineers and labourers.
The danger above ground has not ended either. Chinese authorities said glaciers surrounding the impact area remain unstable, while drone imagery showed landslide deposits along riverbanks capable of collapsing again and potentially creating new barrier lakes. Rescue operations have already been suspended several times because of weather and fears of another flood, forcing commanders to balance the diminishing survival window underground against the risk of sending rescuers into another disaster.
That is what makes Monday's controlled explosions significant. Nepal is no longer waiting for blocked tunnel entrances to be cleared naturally or excavated from the front; rescuers are trying to create new routes through the mountain itself. For hundreds of families, the sound of explosions echoing across the Trishuli valley is therefore carrying two meanings — evidence of the enormous barriers separating rescuers from the missing, but also evidence that the search has not yet become a recovery operation.