Rescue teams in Nepal have stepped up efforts to reach hundreds of workers believed to be trapped inside blocked hydropower tunnels after a deadly flood last week.
Nepali officials said on Monday that the priority was reaching the 933 workers believed to be trapped across 11 hydropower projects, including many who were working in tunnels in the hard-hit districts of Rasuwa and Nuwakot.
Pictures and videos shared by rescue teams showed earth-moving equipment digging through mud and rocks in the dark to reach those trapped.
“A large amount of debris has been deposited, and that is posing us a big challenge to open the tunnels,” Nepalese army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told Reuters. “Our main focus is on opening the tunnels.”
The unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud and debris that struck the Nepal-Tibet border region on Wednesday killed at least 903 people, according to the latest toll from Nepali authorities.
Nearly 5,000 people are still missing in the aftermath of the flood, which has been blamed on a glacier collapse, including the 933 workers at the hydropower projects. Of those missing, at least 590 are foreign nationals from 39 countries, Nepal's foreign ministry has said.
Prime Minister Balendra Shah described the flood as an “unprecedented and devastating natural disaster”, and added that it remained a challenge to compile a complete assessment of the damage.
On the Chinese side of the border, authorities said 16 people were killed in Gyirong County, with 546 still missing.
Nepal has seen a recent boom in hydropower development as the mountainous country looks to tap its Himalayan water resources to address chronic domestic power shortages and export electricity to its southern neighbour India. Hydropower projects in Nepal's mountains rely on tunnels to carry water through the steep terrain – the same tunnels now at the centre of the rescue effort.
Nepal has said it does not require foreign help with general search and rescue operations, but has turned to India and China for their expertise in tunnel rescue.
Rescue operations have been suspended several times due to bad weather, and over concerns that a lake formed across the Nepal-China border by the disaster could trigger fresh flooding after it began overflowing into Nepal's rivers.
