Nepal Digs for 121 Workers Trapped in Tunnels

Kabir Maharjan calls his wife before his shift at the Upper Trishuli 3A project. "I have to go inside the tunnel," he tells her. "There won't be any network inside."

A glacier collapses at Langtang Lirung mountain roughly 25 miles upstream, sending a wall of water down the Trishuli valley that flattens villages and submerges a network of hydropower plants holding nearly 900 workers. In Kathmandu, power stations start vanishing from control-room screens one after another.

Officials give the final evacuation order to 3A. Foreman Sanjay Sah runs floor to floor warning colleagues. Outside, officials say footage shows roughly 30 fleeing workers swept away by a wave many times their height.

Serious digging begins, three days in. Debris was too saturated for heavy machinery, so crews first had to build a stable platform. All four tunnels at 3A were blocked, some under 49 to 98 feet of landslide material.

On the 10th day, rescuers hear a noise, then see a hand in the beam of a light. By 7 a.m. soldiers break a small hole open and hear one word from inside: "hunuhuncha" — we are here. Maharjan and Sah, who survived nine days in an air pocket 160 meters from the exit, are carried out. Two hydropower workers are rescued from another tunnel the same day.

Chinese national Lu Haitao is pulled from a tunnel at the Upper Trishuli-1 project. A Nepali woman is recovered from her buried house.

Authorities name the three tunnels now at the center of the search.