Kathmandu, Nepal —
Nine days after flash flooding washed away valleys and buried entire villages, rescue workers in Nepal had started to shift their operations from finding survivors to recovering bodies.
But then on Friday morning, at the Trishuli 3A hydropower plant, they heard an unmistakeable sound: “Okay.”
In a dramatic breakthrough for what has been a desperate, round-the-clock rescue effort in treacherous conditions, two men were pulled from an underground chamber of the hydropower plant, where Nepali rescue crews had been boring in search of 42 missing workers.
Rescuers had earlier reported hearing voices after days of a complex search and clearing mission, according to Bipin Regmi, police chief in the flood-hit district of Nuwakot.
