Inside the Nepal Tunnel Rescue Operation
New York Times · LC · trust 59/100
An Australian engineer advising the effort described how two men were freed after nine days trapped in a tunnel at the Upper Trishuli 3A hydropower plant.
Listen · 4:43 min Share full article Rescue team members working to enter the tunnel at a hydropower project tunnel on Thursday as they search for survivors, following deadly flash floods in Rasuwa, Nepal, last week. Credit... Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters By Laura Chung
First, rescuers needed to locate the projects and their entrances, because everything had been “removed” by the force of the flood, Mr. Dix.
“It took us the better part of a day or two, just to figure out where the power stations used to be and also to develop a plan as to how might we save people if they survived,” he said.
Hundreds of workers have been missing in the tunnels since last Wednesday, when a glacial collapse sent tsunami-like waves of water mixed with rock and debris through two river valleys, killing more than 1,300 people and leaving more than 4,000 missing in Nepal and neighboring China.
Nepal has built a robust hydroelectric industry , harnessing the fast-flowing waters in the Himalayas to generate electricity. Those projects require both manual and engineering work to construct tunnel systems deep into the earth. Many hydropower projects have been constructed along the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli Rivers, which bore the brunt of the flooding.
Mr. Dix and his team’s efforts were focused on the Trishuli 3A hydropower project.
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