Two Workers’ Miraculous Rescue Offers Hope Amid Nepal’s Unanswered Disaster

Two Workers’ Miraculous Rescue Offers Hope Amid Nepal’s Unanswered Disaster
The rescue of two workers from a flooded Nepalese hydropower tunnel has transformed a vast disaster’s grim arithmetic into a fragile contest between hope and time. Nine days after floods and landslides struck, rescuers are still searching for hundreds believed trapped underground.

Sanjay Shah, a mechanical foreman, and Kabir Maharjan, a mechanical supervisor, were pulled alive from the Trishuli 3A tunnel at a depth of about 170 metres. Officials said both were in stable condition and taken to a hospital in Kathmandu. A more concise official account likewise identified the men by their roles and said at least 900 people may have been trapped across hydropower tunnels along the river.

The rescue has offered families a rare reason for optimism. Rescuers reportedly heard voices inside the tunnel before locating the men, and officials believe air pockets may have allowed some workers to survive. Nepal’s communication minister, Bikram Timilsina, said, “We are waiting for the rescue of more and more people.”

But the two accounts differ in emphasis. One detailed report foregrounded Shah’s actions during the flood: he said he stayed behind to help evacuate roughly 40 to 45 workers, losing his own escape route in the process. “My responsibility was to save everyone’s lives,” he told rescuers. The official-focused coverage instead concentrates on the scale of the emergency: at least 1,259 people were killed, more than 5,000 remained missing, and about 900 workers were unaccounted for across multiple projects.

That contrast captures the rescue effort’s central tension. The survival of Shah and Maharjan demonstrates what is still possible underground; the numbers surrounding them show how unlikely—and urgent—the remaining searches have become. At Trishuli 3A alone, roughly 115 workers are believed to remain in the main tunnel.