{"id":601535,"date":"2026-08-31T11:50:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T11:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/601535\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T11:50:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T11:50:16","slug":"nepal-teams-seek-hundreds-trapped-in-hydropower-tunnels-after-deadly-floods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/601535\/","title":{"rendered":"Nepal teams seek hundreds trapped in hydropower tunnels after deadly floods"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nepal’s rescue teams, helped by Chinese and Indian experts, worked overnight to reach hundreds of people believed to be stuck inside blocked hydropower project tunnels in the aftermath of last week’s Himalayan flood that carved a trail of destruction in the country’s valley towns and villages as well as across the border in China.<\/p>\n

The unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud and debris<\/a> on the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday \u2013 blamed on a glacier collapse \u2013 killed nearly 800 people and more than 3,000 are still missing.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of bodies, many unidentified, have been buried in shallow graves<\/a> as they began decomposing in the humid weather in the plains of the Himalayan country after being swept down the mountains by the torrent.<\/p>\n

Nepali officials<\/a> said that the focus was on reaching the hundreds of workers believed to be trapped inside about half a dozen hydropower project tunnels that had been blocked by mud and rock debris.<\/p>\n

Pictures and videos shared by rescue teams showed earth-moving equipment digging and shoveling mud and rocks under lights in the dark of the night as workers watched. Soldiers used torchlight in a big pit they had created to look for space to get into one tunnel.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn undated handout photo of rescue workers taking part in a rescue operation near the tunnel of the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Project, following deadly flash floods and mudslides, in Rasuwa, Nepal in this handout obtained by Reuters on August 30, 2026. (credit: Nepal Army\/Handout via REUTERS)<\/p>\n

Nepal\u2019s disaster management authority said that 933 people were missing from hydropower projects in the flood-hit region. The Red Cross has estimated that more than 90,000 people are likely to have been affected by the disaster, which China has linked to the effects of climate change.<\/p>\n

Complete assessment of damage challenging, Nepal PM says<\/p>\n

\u201cA large amount of debris has been deposited, and that is posing us a big challenge to opening the tunnels,\u201d Nepal army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet told Reuters. \u201cOur main focus is on opening the tunnels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Balendra Shah said the flood was an \u201cunprecedented and devastating natural disaster\u201d and it remained challenging to compile a complete assessment of the damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the adverse weather, difficult terrain and continuing risks, we are moving forward with determination to save the lives of our citizens,\u201d he said in a Facebook post late on Sunday, adding that nearly 21,000 security personnel were involved in the rescue operations, besides civilian workers and volunteers.<\/p>\n

Nepali authorities said 788 had died, with 2,500 missing, including the more than 900 people at hydropower projects, as of Sunday night. On the Chinese side, authorities said 16 people were killed in Gyirong County, and 546 were missing.<\/p>\n

Beijing has said 261 foreign nationals from 23 countries were unaccounted for in Tibet, near a key border crossing with Nepal.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s state-run CCTV reported Beijing has mobilized more than 2,100 rescue workers and allocated at least 220 million yuan ($33 million) to support relief efforts and has been airdropping equipment and supplies to frontline rescuers, while its soldiers used life-detection equipment to look for the missing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Survivors look to salvage belongings<\/p>\n

Although Nepal has said that it does not need foreign help in general rescue and search, it has leaned on giant neighbors India and China for their expertise in tunnel rescue.<\/p>\n

Rescue operations have been suspended several times since Friday because of bad weather and concerns that a lake formed across the Nepal-China<\/a> border by the disaster could trigger fresh flooding after it began overflowing into Nepal’s rivers.<\/p>\n

The weather was good on Monday, and rescue work continued to pick up pace, said Narendra Pariyar, the district administrator of Rasuwa, one of the two hard-hit districts.<\/p>\n

In the holy town of Devighat, on the banks of the flooded Trishuli River, residents walked around the shells of what had once been homes, trying to salvage their belongings from the debris.<\/p>\n

The flood was “caused by glacier instability under the long-term effects of global warming,” Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported, saying it was a “new and prominent feature of cryosphere disasters” on the Tibetan plateau.<\/p>\n

Two Nepali officials told Reuters that China had not shared much information on glacier risks and water levels following a meeting to strengthen cooperation earlier this year, and they feared that a lack of data sharing could hamper future disaster preparedness. China’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the meeting.<\/p>\n

The mudslide from the Nepalese side took six to seven minutes to reach the Gyirong border crossing, CCTV said, citing the findings of Chinese scientists. Dramatic surveillance footage shared worldwide showed torrents of water and debris engulfing buildings while people tried to flee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nepal’s rescue teams, helped by Chinese and Indian experts, worked overnight to reach hundreds of people believed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1657,242,17387,85,46,146308,5086,141,101653],"class_list":["post-601535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-china","tag-environment","tag-flood","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-natural-disaster","tag-nepal","tag-science","tag-tibet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}