Inside Nepal’s Miraculous Tunnel Rescue: How Two Workers Were Saved After a Glacial Collapse

On a bleak morning in early September, the Trishuli 3A hydropower plant in Nuwakot district was a scene of chaos. A sudden glacial collapse on August 26 had unleashed a torrent of water, mud and massive rocks that slammed into the underground tunnel, turning it into a maze of darkness.

Dozens of workers were inside when the wall of debris came crashing down. For nine agonising days, families waited, and rescuers hunted for any sign of life amid the rubble. Then, just before dawn on Friday, a faint voice cut through the silence.

“Don’t panic, we are rescuing you,” shouted Nepali lawmaker Shri Ram Neupane, who was part of the team. The response was a barely audible “Hunchha” – Nepali for “yes”. It was the sound that shifted the mission from a search to a race against time.

Australian tunnelling expert Arnold Dix, who was advising the operation, explained that the rescuers first mapped the underground network using satellite imagery, old engineering drawings and topographical data. They identified a “Goldilocks zone” – a stretch of tunnel that, based on the data, was more likely to have survived the collapse.

Reaching that zone was anything but easy. Water and sludge flooded the passage, so the team first had to pump it out and then navigate the remains on white‑water rafts. Ahead of them loomed rocks the size of cars, blocking the way. With no way around them, the only option was to blast the boulders apart – a terrifying gamble because anyone could be trapped on the other side.

Above ground, the Nepalese Army deployed five excavators, compressors and hydraulic breakers to widen access points. Controlled explosions cleared the tunnel entrance, but once they got closer to the potential survivors, heavy machinery became a liability. The rescuers switched to hand‑clearing, painstakingly removing mud and stone piece by piece to avoid triggering another collapse.

In total, roughly 50‑60 metres of debris were cleared by hand. When the faint “Hunchha” echoed through the tunnel, Dix estimated the voice came from about 60 metres into a 200‑metre passage. A rope was lowered, and the first man to emerge was 30‑year‑old Sanjay Sah, a mechanical foreman from Saptari. He was pulled out on a rescuer’s back, his first question simple and poignant: “What day is it?”

The second survivor, 45‑year‑old mechanical supervisor Kabir Maharjan, was lifted out on a stretcher with an oxygen mask. Covered in mud, he pressed his hands together in prayer as he was carried to a waiting helicopter. Both men were flown to Kathmandu for treatment; Maharjan, initially listed as critical, later stabilized, and his wife Hira Shobha confirmed he could speak and recognize her.

In a later interview, Sah recounted that around 40‑45 workers were inside when the disaster struck. He had spent precious minutes urging his colleagues to flee, only to be caught himself as the tunnel collapsed.

The rescue, broadcast live and watched by a nation, underscored the blend of high‑tech planning and raw human grit. Satellite data pointed the way, explosives opened a path, but it was the steady hands of Nepali rescuers that finally turned a faint voice into a story of survival.