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It has been almost one week since powerful flash floods devastated riverside communities in Tibet and Nepal. And rescuers are still trying to locate hundreds of people, many of them workers, believed to be trapped inside a dozen hydro power plants. But as NPR's Diaa Hadid reports, the rescuers first have to find those power plants.
DIAA HADID, BYLINE: Nepal's army is leading rescue efforts, and on X, they shared video of khaki-clad men pulling themselves on ropes in slippery mud in a tight, dark, dripping tunnel.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).
HADID: Just finding the tunnel is an achievement. Arnold Dix is a tunneling expert helping to oversee rescue efforts. He describes the flood like a bomb that's gone off.
ARNOLD DIX: We've got multiple power stations all blown up. In each of them, we've potentially got people trapped.
HADID: So there are multiple disasters.
DIX: All concurrent, all with people who could be alive, all in grave danger of dying.
HADID: But first, they have to find the power stations, many built along Nepal's Trishuli River, because they were covered up by mud, debris and boulders.
DIX: So you're presented with a moonscape. Used to be - we used to have a power station here, but it's gone.
HADID: He says the ground has risen between 30 and 50 ft in some areas. That's caused the river to literally shift. Dix says rescuers are relying on advanced mapping techniques to locate the tunnels, which were a feature of the hydro power plants. That's because they lead into the turbine houses.
DIX: And the Goldilocks zone, where we think people may have survived, is actually in the turbine houses, but we haven't been able to get into any turbine houses yet.
HADID: Yet. Dix says he's been assigned one hydropower plant called Trishuli 3A, where dozens of people are fear trapped. He says, consider the challenges they face. He says in the past few days, rescuers dug down into the entrance of the tunnel. It used to be open to the air.
DIX: But it's now underneath the river.
HADID: And it was blocked by huge boulders carried by the flood, and they had to get the army to...
DIX: So normally, it's a no no to use explosives, but we had to call the army in to blow up the rocks.
HADID: They were also trying to prevent water from rushing in by...
DIX: Trying to create an artificial drain for the tunnel so that we can let the water out.
HADID: And they're trying to punch a hole in the top of the power station and...
DIX: See if we can get some air and a bit of light and see if there's anyone alive in there.
HADID: The president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, Phur Gelje Sherpa, told NPR that some of their men were assisting rescuers in finding tunnels, but they kept encountering...
PHUR GELJE SHERPA: Debris (inaudible) muddy, and it's very, very, very difficult to walk inside.
HADID: Some people have survived.
JANAK THAPALIYA: (Speaking Nepalese).
HADID: One of them was 29-year-old Janak Thapaliya. He says when he saw the floodwaters gushing down...
THAPALIYA: (Through interpreter) People started screaming. We all started running.
HADID: Thapaliya saw a floating water tanker and climbed onto it, says, that's how I saved my life. But most of his friends, his colleagues...
THAPALIYA: (Through interpreter) I saw the water carrying them all away.
HADID: Thapaliya says he was lucky.
THAPALIYA: (Through interpreter) My friends were not able to save themselves. They could have survived, but they did not get the chance.
HADID: Many Nepalese were angered after the government initially turned down offers of foreign assistance. The CEO of the Independent Power Plant Producers' Association in Nepal told NPR that now foreign teams are helping, but...
BHIM GAUTAM: Now rescue is going on, but it is so late.
HADID: The CEO, Bhim Gautam, says the government did not understand the level of technical expertise needed to rescue people from these hydro projects. On Tuesday, a spokesperson for Nepal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said two teams from India and another from China, specialized in tunnel rescues, had arrived to assist Nepali teams. Spokesperson Lok Bahadur Poudel Chhetri said a Korean team was also on its way. And, he added, rescue efforts were yet to make progress.
Diaa Hadid, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIM ALLHOFF'S "STILLNESS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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