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Drone shot of a flooded rural area in Kampong Thom Province, Cambodia.(For reference only)
How two men survived nine days trapped in a Nepal flood tunnel
KATHMANDU — September 8, 2026
Two hydropower workers survived nine days trapped inside a mud-filled tunnel in Nepal after a powerful flood and landslide destroyed infrastructure across the Trishuli valley. Kabir Maharjan and Sanjay Sah endured darkness, contaminated water and dwindling hope before rescuers reached them at the Upper Trishuli 3A Hydropower Project.
Maharjan spent much of the ordeal drifting in and out of consciousness in a pool of muddy water. When rescuers finally brought him out, he was badly injured and later failed to recognise his wife when she visited him in hospital.
The men were among hundreds of hydropower workers believed to have been caught when a glacier collapsed near Langtang Lirung on August 26. The resulting landslide sent a huge volume of mud and water downstream, destroying villages and damaging 12 hydropower projects, with more than 1,300 people reported dead and thousands missing across Nepal and neighbouring Tibet.
Their survival depended on an air-filled space inside the tunnel, according to Shri Ram Neupane, a lawmaker and experienced tunnel engineer who was involved in the rescue. The case has also raised hopes that other workers still believed to be trapped in tunnels may have survived.
Maharjan had spoken to his wife, Hira Shova Maharjan, at about 7:30 a.m. on the morning of the disaster, before beginning his shift at the Upper Trishuli 3A project. He told her he would be entering a tunnel where there would be no mobile network.
About an hour later, the glacier collapse triggered the disaster. In Kathmandu, officials monitoring the country's hydropower network watched power stations disappear from their control screens one after another as the flood moved through the valley.
Suraj Dahal, an engineer with the Nepal Electricity Authority who helped coordinate the response, said officials initially did not realise the scale of the danger because flooding is a familiar hazard in Nepal. They soon recognised that the situation was different.
At about 9:15 a.m., officials ordered workers at the 3A project to evacuate. Sah, who was working in the powerhouse control room, moved through the building warning colleagues individually.
Workers outside the tunnels tried to escape the approaching flood, but many were unable to get away. Officials later reviewed footage showing about 30 workers being swept away by a large wave.
Rescuers also identified an escape ladder that could potentially have allowed many more workers to survive. But Dahal said workers did not know where to go as the flood struck.
Engineering drawings showed four routes into the tunnel system. One route extended more than 180 metres toward the underground powerhouse, but rescuers believed it had been completely flooded.
Neupane instead focused on a shorter cable-duct tunnel that rose upward and was less exposed to the floodwaters. Maharjan and Sah had reached that area, about 160 metres from the exit, and found an air pocket where they could survive.
For the next nine days, that space became both their refuge and their prison. Sah later told rescuers that he repeated Hindu prayers to maintain his courage, while Maharjan survived by drinking the muddy water around him.
Outside, Hira Shova repeatedly tried to contact her husband and others at the site, but received no response. When officials showed her images of the destroyed entrance, she began to believe that he could not have survived.
She kept her fears from her two sons, aged 15 and 10, while continuing to hope that her husband might still be alive.
Rescue teams faced enormous obstacles as they searched the damaged hydropower sites. More than 7,500 homes had been destroyed across the valley, forcing authorities to decide which locations should receive urgent search operations.
The Upper Trishuli 3A project remained a priority because its large, multi-level structure included turbine and ventilation areas that could potentially contain pockets of breathable air.
Neupane and fellow lawmaker and engineer Sagar Dhakal reached the area by military helicopter the day after the disaster. But the ground was too saturated for heavy machinery to begin work immediately.
Rescuers first had to create a stable platform before excavation could start. When serious digging began three days after the disaster, all four tunnels were blocked by mud, rocks, timber and other debris, with some sections buried beneath between 15 and 30 metres of landslide material.
Crews used drilling, controlled explosions and heavy machinery to gradually clear a route. A five-inch borehole drilled from above eventually established the tunnel's exact position and gave rescuers a fixed point toward which they could dig.
Rain repeatedly disrupted the operation. Heavy downpours filled excavated sections with water and debris, sometimes destroying hours of progress within minutes.
It took almost six days for rescuers to reach the buried entrance to the tunnel. When they called inside, however, there was no response.
The operation changed on the night before the two men were discovered. Rescuers encountered another large blockage that could not be cleared directly, so Dhakal's team used a natural channel roughly 15 metres above the tunnel and directed high-pressure water through it.
Tests showed that the method could clear several metres of material within minutes. But another spell of rain caused part of the passage to collapse, briefly trapping members of the rescue team themselves.
After the rescuers were brought back to safety, crews strengthened the passage with metal sheets and wire structures and continued toward the tunnel.
At about 4 a.m. on September 4, a heavy-equipment operator told Dahal that workers had detected a possible sound from inside. Rescuers repeatedly stopped their machines so they could listen more carefully.
Ganga Baral, who led the rescue team, said they called into the darkness and sometimes believed they could hear someone responding. They could not make out clear words, but eventually estimated that the sound was coming from only 15 to 20 metres away.
Then rescuers saw a hand through the opening.
Several more metres of mud still separated them from the trapped workers. By about 7 a.m., soldiers had opened a small passage into the tunnel.
A voice came from inside. The men said, "hunuhuncha", a Nepali expression meaning roughly that they were there.
Neither worker was able to walk when rescuers brought them into daylight. Sah, covered in mud, was carried out on a rescuer's back and raised one hand as cameras recorded the moment.
Maharjan was in worse condition and was carried out on a stretcher. His sons later celebrated when they learned that their father had been rescued.
Dhakal, who directed the operation from outside the tunnel, said he cried when the two men emerged.
The rescue effort continued at other sites. The following day, a Chinese national, Lu Haitao, was found alive inside a tunnel at the separate Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project.
Maharjan was taken to hospital, where doctors treated a deep and infected wound on his leg. When his wife entered his hospital room, he did not recognise her and asked where he was.
For Hira Shova, however, the confusion was less important than the fact that her husband had returned alive after nine days underground.
She described his survival as being given another life.
