Two trapped tunnel workers rescued in Nepal 'miracle'

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KATHMANDU — Two hydropower workers were pulled alive on Friday from a tunnel buried by debris in Nepal, a rare ray of hope on the tenth day of rescue efforts after catastrophic Himalayan flooding.

Rescuers cheered as one man was pulled through a muddy opening, a video released by the energy ministry showed.

He was helped to his feet by rescuers, and later carried on the backs of the emergency workers, raising his hand as they rushed him towards a helicopter.

This handout photograph taken and released by the Nepal Army on September 4, 2026 shows army personnel carrying a worker who was trapped inside a tunnel, during a rescue operation at Trishuli-3A Hydropower Project in Nepal's Rasuwa district.

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

"As long as there is breath, there is hope!" Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha said in a statement.

"Rescue operations are continuing in all the affected tunnels. Let everyone's efforts and prayers continue. We have not lost hope."

Rescuers called it a "miracle" after the August 26 glacial and mountain collapse on the China-Nepal border killed at least 1,308 people and left more than 5,600 missing.

"I am so happy, my heart is lighter," Amir Maharjan, the brother of rescued worker, 45-year-old Kabir Maharjan, told AFP.

Rescued worker Sanjay Sah, 30, speaking on a video broadcast on Nepali media shortly after his rescue, said he had survived by praying during the days in the dark.

"What day is today? I was chanting maha mantra (Hindu prayers) inside," Sah said, adding that he believed more workers may be in the tunnel.

"There were as many as 40 or 45 people... I told them and everyone to run out," he said of the moment the disaster struck.

Family members and relatives of two people rescued from the Trishuli 3A Tunnel, ten days since the Tibet-Nepal floods, gather outside the Military Hospital in Kathmandu on September 4, 2026.

"He can talk; he is okay. He has strength to talk and recognised me. At first he did not, but now he does."

Maharjan's sister-in-law Lakshmi Naini waited outside a hospital in Kathmandu, where he was taken by helicopter.

"It's a miracle. I am very happy," she told AFP. "I heard he is alive through social media, and I could not believe it."

"I have no words to express how I feel," said another relative, Shyam Maharjan, 45.

The rescued pair were among hundreds of hydropower workers who had been missing since the wall of mud and debris swept through the region following 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.

Extra soldiers had been sent on Friday to boost the search operation, pulling out three dead bodies.

The government initially said it believed more than 100 workers could be alive inside multiple tunnels.

Nepali rescuers, aided by experts from India, China and South Korea, had repeatedly hit walls of hard-packed debris in their search for survivors.

Until Friday, none of the tunnel workers had been confirmed alive.