Man in Nepal tunnel and woman rescued 10 days after flash flood

Rescuers in Nepal found two more survivors on Saturday, ten days after powerful floods struck the Nepal-Tibet region on August 26. A man was pulled out of a dark tunnel at a hydropower plant, and a woman was found alive inside a badly damaged house. Their rescues brought a moment of joy to a country still dealing with one of its worst natural disasters in recent memory.

A Chinese worker named Lu Haitao was rescued from a tunnel at the Trishuli hydropower project. The tunnel was 225 meters long — about as long as two and a half football fields. A joint rescue team made up of Nepali soldiers and South Korean disaster experts pulled him to safety. He was flown out by helicopter, with an army medic checking on him during the flight. Mr. Lu was taken to a hospital and was listed in stable condition.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV shared audio of Mr. Lu describing what it was like to be trapped. He said he shouted over and over whenever he saw the lights from rescue crews, but they could not hear him. His rescue was the third successful rescue at the Trishuli project. Two Nepalese workers had been pulled from the same site the day before.

Rescue teams are now focused on 12 hydropower projects across Nepal. About 900 workers are missing from these sites, and roughly 500 are believed to be trapped inside tunnels. Specialized rescue teams from India, China, South Korea, and the United States are searching through rubble, broken structures, and dark tunnels. They are working hard to find anyone still alive.

In a separate rescue, a woman named Chandika Kumari Shrestha was found alive in the flood-hit town of Nuwakot. Rescuers discovered her covered in mud inside the ruins of a house. They gave her bottled water before wrapping her in a grey blanket and pulling her to safety. She was then airlifted to the capital city, Kathmandu, for medical treatment.

Nepal's Prime Minister Balendra Shah praised the rescue of Ms. Shrestha. He said her survival "has given hope to the entire nation." Her story showed that even after many days, survivors can still be found in the wreckage left by floods.

The August 26 floods were likely caused by a glacier collapse — when a large mass of ice broke apart in the mountains. At least 1,300 people were killed, and more than 5,000 are still missing. The United Nations launched a $50 million appeal to help the more than 84,000 people affected by the disaster. Officials warned that the huge scale of the destruction makes it very hard to deliver food, medicine, and other aid.

The damage to Nepal has been enormous. More than 7,500 homes, 48 public buildings, and about 100 bridges were destroyed, according to the Nepalese government. Morgues — the places where bodies are kept — became so full that about 1,030 bodies had to be buried in mass graves. DNA samples were taken from each body so families might be able to identify their loved ones in the future.

Despite the tragedy, there were small signs of progress. A team managed to reach a remote border crossing between Nepal and China called Timure, in the Rasuwa district. They raised Nepal's national flag at the location after three days of difficult work. The prime minister posted about it on Facebook, calling it "extremely difficult" to even find the border through the destruction and raise the flag there again.