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Two workers pulled alive

September 4, 2026

Nepal's Army says two workers came out alive from a flooded hydropower tunnel on the Trishuli, nine days after the disaster on the border with China.

CNN reports the two survivors by name, Sanjay Sah, 30, and Kabir Maharjan, 45, and puts their rescue on Friday morning at the Trishuli 3A plant, after more than a week of digging. Nepal's Army confirmed both rescues and put video and photographs of the scene on Facebook, ABC News reports. The Guardian describes one man leaving the site on a rescuer's shoulder, muddied but awake, and adds that a senior police official has confirmed the recovery of a body from the same tunnel. The New York Times reports from within the rescue operation itself, and WSJ ties the pair to a flood nine days earlier. On method the accounts agree. Rescuers reached the tunnel mouth on Monday, five days in, and worked inward from there, and CNN cites Maj. Gen. Anup Jung Thapa, head of military operations, on the thermal detectors, long cameras, drones and remotely piloted machines in use.

Statements from officials carry across the outlets. ABC News reports Communication Minister Bikram Timilsina saying officials still expect further rescues, and Prime Minister Shah saying his government will turn toward rehabilitation as the days pass. CNN reports a brother of a man still missing near the plant saying the two recoveries have revived the family's hope, and reports that both survivors are under care at a military hospital in Kathmandu, according to the Prime Minister's Office. The Guardian reports that attention has also gone to the Rasuwagadhi plant, where Nepali authorities say 46 workers sealed in an underground chamber are believed alive, an account CNN carries as well. ABC News, CNN, The New York Times and WSJ each report China's Thursday decision to move customs facilities at a Tibetan border port, with authorities pointing to geological risk.

The counts of dead and missing are where the record splits. One account gives almost 1,300 dead with thousands unaccounted for, among them roughly 900 workers at hydropower sites along the river. Another sets the confirmed dead a little lower and the missing above 5,000, drawing on the national disaster agency. A third carries lower figures still, marked as the previous day's tally from the same kind of official register. The gap tracks the hour each account was written and which agency register it drew from, so two numbers side by side are often two different moments. The rescue of the two men holds across every account, along with their identities, their treatment in Kathmandu, the nine days underground, and the customs move in Tibet. Unsettled are how many people are still inside the tunnel and how many the floods killed.

Still developing

The record does not close on the death and missing toll, where the figures do not line up between the accounts.

How settled the reporting is

Reported 98% · Contested 1% · Developing 1%

Sources