Nepal Tunnel Rescue: Expert Shares How 2 Survivors Were Pulled Out Alive
- A tunnelling expert advising Nepal's rescue team described the extraordinary series of challenges crews overcame to reach trapped workers inside a flooded hydropower tunnel
- Rescuers had to locate a buried tunnel entrance, pump out floodwater, and use controlled explosives to clear debris before they could reach survivors
- With dozens of people still believed to be trapped deeper inside the mountain, the rescue operation is continuing toward what the expert called the 'Goldilocks zone'
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A tunnelling expert who advised on the rescue of two men trapped inside a flooded hydropower tunnel in Nepal has told the BBC that the operation required overcoming a series of near-impossible obstacles before they could bring anyone out alive.
Arnold Dix, president of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association, has been working with Nepal's hydropower authorities to clear a path through the blocked tunnel at the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Station, one of several facilities damaged by a severe flash flood on the Nepal-Tibet border last week that has killed at least 1,300 people.
Source: Getty Images
Buried entrance and dangerous conditions
According to BBC, the first problem facing rescuers was finding the tunnel itself. The scale of the flooding had buried the entrance entirely. "I've never known a rescue operation where you had to look for an entrance of a tunnel that was previously up the hill, that was now underground. You can imagine the enormity of the avalanche, it completely buried the entrance," Dix said.
His team used old topographic maps, satellite imagery, helicopter footage, and visible surface markers such as power poles to estimate where the entrance had been before digging to find it.
Once inside, they encountered a passage completely blocked by mud and rocks, some as large as cars, with water still filling sections of the tunnel. Rescuers dug a series of trenches connecting the tunnel to the nearby river to drain it.
To break through the biggest obstructions, the team used controlled explosives, something Dix said they would "normally never do because of the risk of blowingg up people [trapped in the tunnel] and blowingg ourselves up." He credited the Nepalese army for handling the blasts with enough precision to keep the tunnel structure stable.
The final step was carving a narrow passageway through the debris at the top of the tunnel. "A tiny tunnel the size of a person," as Dix described it, using the original tunnel's roof as a ceiling to reduce the risk of collapse or flooding from above.
Two men found alive
In the early hours of Friday morning, the team heard what sounded like voices. They called out to say they were there to rescue anyone inside, and heard a faint "okay" in reply. Shortly after, Sanjaya Shah and Kabir Maharjan were pulled out alive.
Dix said the outcome felt like "layer upon layer of miracles" given everything the team had faced.
Rescue work is now pressing forward. Dix said they have dug roughly 60 metres from the entrance and need to cover about 150 more to reach the hydropower station, which sits deep inside the mountain. He called the uppermost level of the station the "Goldilocks zone," a section more likely to have breathable air and space where additional survivors could be sheltering.
Significant risks remain. Dix warned that rescuers could still encounter trapped water further ahead, and that another flood outside the mountain could send water into the tunnel from the opposite direction.
"We got two people out," he said. "If we were playing at a casinoo, some might say it's time to walk away, but we say game on, time to take on the house."
Catastrophic floods kill over 270 in Nepal
Legit.ng earlier reported that rescue teams searched Thursday, August 27, 2026, for hundreds of missing people along the Nepal-Tibet border after the collapse of a glacier sent a deadly wall of water and mud several stories high, tearing through communities a day earlier.
Source: Legit.ng
