Nepali rescuers searched yesterday for more than 100 hydropower workers feared trapped in tunnels days after four miracle rescues from the wreckage of catastrophic floods that laid waste to towns and villages on the Himalayan border with China.
The rescues have offered a glimmer of hope as Nepal marked the 13th day after the disaster, traditionally the final day of mourning in Hindu rites, for the hundreds killed in the floods.
About 121 of a total 900 people missing from the hydroelectric projects could have been trapped in these tunnels, army rescuers said.
Others may have been working elsewhere at the power plants but not inside the vast network of tunnels.
Among those whom rescuers were trying to find yesterday were four out of six people missing at the Chilime hydropower project in the hard-hit Rasuwa district who could still be alive, Shri Ram Neupane, a legislators involved in rescue efforts, told Reuters.
Authorities had obtained specialised equipment and identified techniques needed for the Chilime operation, Neupane said.
Rescuers believe that there could be survivors trapped inside tunnels because many have air pockets, as well as spaces and rooms for people to stay, they said last week.
In recent days, search teams in Nepal have rescued four people, including a Chinese national who was pulled from a tunnel on Saturday.
The others were two hydropower workers rescued from another tunnel on Friday and a Nepali woman pulled out from her buried house on Saturday.
Government offices in the Hindu majority country and at missions abroad would fly the national flag at half-mast to mark the 13th day after death, the home ministry said in a statement.
The day is considered the final day of mourning by the faithful, who commemorate it with rituals and food offerings.
The disaster was triggered on August 26 when a huge mass of mud and rock, following the collapse of part of a glacier, crashed into a river along the border between Nepal and China’s Tibet region.
The resulting floods washed away towns and villages and buried roads and highways under mud and debris.
At least 1,380 people have been killed by the mudslide and more than 5,500 are missing in Nepal and Tibet.
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