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.
The unprecedented deluge of ice, rock, mud and debris on the Nepal-Tibet border on Wednesday, blamed on a glacier collapse, killed more than 900 people and nearly 5,000 are still missing.
Hundreds of bodies, many unidentified, have been buried in shallow graves as they began decomposing in the humid weather in the plains of the Himalayan country after being swept down the mountains by the torrent.
Nepali officials 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.
Pictures and videos shared by rescue teams showed earth-moving equipment digging and shovelling 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.
