(TNND) — Ten days after catastrophic flash floods tore through Nepal’s mountains, rescuers pulled a Chinese worker from a mud-filled hydropower tunnel, a rare moment of relief amid a disaster that has killed more than 1,300 people and left thousands unaccounted for.
The flash floods struck Nepal and China’s Tibet region on Aug. 26, likely after a glacier collapse. Nepal’s disaster management agency said nearly 4,900 people remain missing. Earlier in the response, authorities reported more than 3,700 people had been rescued in Nepal.
On the Tibet side of the border, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported 43 deaths and 519 people missing as of Saturday evening. CCTV said 261 of those missing were foreigners.
Rescue operations have focused in part on hydropower sites in Nepal’s Rasuwa district and the devastated Gyirong border crossing in Tibet. Authorities previously believed more than 100 people could be trapped inside a mud-filled tunnel at the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project.
CCTV reported that Lu Haitao, a 49-year-old Chinese worker, was rescued Saturday from a 225-meter, or roughly 740-foot, hydropower tunnel in Rasuwa, 10 days after the floods. Rescuers carried Lu out of the tunnel and evacuated him by helicopter, according to CCTV, which reported he was hospitalized in stable condition.
Lu told CCTV he had climbed to the highest point in the tunnel and had begun to lose hope before rescue crews found him. CCTV reported Lu is a former farmer from Henan province who also worked as a carpenter, and that he traveled to Nepal in February for his first job abroad.
As the search continues, families of missing people have searched hospitals and relief centers and posted photographs and contact information in hopes of finding relatives.
Rescue work has been complicated by steep mountains, narrow gorges and concern about further flooding from a lake that formed in the Himalayas after the initial disaster. Chinese monitoring data showed the water level in that new lake had dropped about 10 meters, or 32 feet, from its peak.
Nepal said it mobilized domestic and international resources, including an 11-member tunnel-rescue reconnaissance team from India. A similar team from China was expected.
Nepal has received more than 57 metric tons of relief supplies from India, with aid also arriving from China, Japan, Australia and other countries.