The men had been sealed inside a tunnel at the Trishuli 3A hydropower plant on the Trishuli River since Aug. 26, when a chunk of glacier broke away and unleashed torrents of water and debris down the Bhote Koshi and Trishuli valleys. The flooding devastated communities on both sides of the Nepal-Tibet border.
Army spokesman Gen. Raja Ram Basnet confirmed the first worker's rescue, and lawmaker Shri Ram Neupane later announced on social media that both men had been freed. Local television showed a mud-caked survivor being carried out by a rescue worker; both men were taken for medical evaluation.
"I am so happy, a weight has been lifted from my heart", the brother of one survivor told AFP.
The plant, in Rasuwa district roughly 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of Kathmandu, remains at the center of a much larger search effort. The Independent Power Producers' Association of Nepal says 557 workers are still unaccounted for at Trishuli 3A alone, about 115 of whom were inside the main tunnel when the flood struck. Nationally, Nepal's disaster management authority estimates roughly 900 people are missing across 12 hydropower projects, with close to 500 believed trapped underground.
Nepal's overall death toll from last week's flooding stood at 1,259 as of Thursday evening, with more than 5,000 people still reported missing, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority. In Tibet, controlled by Beijing, authorities reported 21 dead and 541 missing as of Wednesday, the most recent figures available.
The disaster agency's chief, Dharma Raj Upreti, told Reuters total damage was estimated at 387.5 billion Nepali rupees, or about USD 2.5 billion (EUR 2.2 billion). He said the most urgent repairs over the next four months alone would cost USD 52.6 million (EUR 45 million), while roughly 20,000 homes need to be rebuilt or repaired.
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Source: PAP, Polish Radio