Two more survivors from Nepal’s catastrophic flash floods were rescued on Saturday, offering a sliver of hope for a region reeling from the destruction wrought by a wave of water, ice and mud that washed away entire riverside communities 10 days ago.
A Chinese national, Lu Haitao, was pulled from the hydropower tunnels where hundreds of other workers remain missing while the other, 60-year-old Chandika Shrestha, was found downriver, on the upper floor of a four-story building in the devastated community of Betrawati.
So much time has passed since the floods that Shrestha’s family had started ceremonial last rites and begun preparing for her funeral, believing she had died, a local official said.
Thousands of families remain in this limbo across Nepal and China, not knowing if their loved ones are alive or dead. At least 1,362 people are known to have died in the disaster, authorities say.
About 900 of those missing are hydropower workers, who were working at facilities dotted along the Trishuli River when a huge chunk of ice sheared off a melting glacier, triggering a landslide and floods which buried entire communities in minutes.
