Nepali army teams searched yesterday for more than 100 people trapped inside a hydropower tunnel two days after devastating floods struck the site, as India offered to send a specialised rescue team.
India has extensive experience with difficult Himalayan tunnel rescues, including specialised teams of "rat-hole" miners.
However, the uncertainty was agonising for families waiting for news.
"I have not heard from him since I spoke to him at 7:00am that day. We have not had any news about them either, if they are being rescued or not," Sita Adhikari, whose husband was trapped in the hydropower tunnel, told reporters.
"We will have hope as long as we have our breath... We need them to be rescued as soon as possible," she said.
Two army helicopters were sent to the Trishuli 3A hydropower project in the mountainous Rasuwa district.
"Our focus is on search and rescue of people... some people are trapped in the tunnel of Trishuli 3A hydropower project," Nepal Army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told AFP.
"Two helicopters have been dispatched but it is challenging because it is tough to even locate the entry points of the tunnel," he said.
— Infrastructure smashed —
Nepal's prime minister's office said the army had already rescued 350 people from the site under "extremely risky and challenging conditions", but that more than 100 remained trapped.
It did not give further details about the nationalities of those rescued or those still inside.
India's specialised tunnel rescue team will be preceded by a reconnaissance team to assess conditions and determine what equipment is needed, New Delhi said.
"As requested by Nepal, we are preparing to send a tunnel rescue team," India's foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters.
In 2023, Indian engineers and skilled miners rescued 41 workers stuck in a tunnel in the northern state of Uttarakhand after a marathon 17-day operation.
After repeated setbacks, including falling debris, fears of further cave-ins and drilling machine breakdowns, military engineers and miners dug the final section by hand using the "rat-hole" technique — a team worked at the rock face inside a metal pipe, just wide enough for someone to squeeze through.
Nepal appealed earlier yesterday for international financial assistance after devastating floods near its border with Tibet, but said it was coping without foreign rescue teams.
"If Nepal needs any specialised help or expertise, then we will request it," Nepali foreign ministry spokesman Lok Bahadur Chhetri told AFP.
India is also sending a medical team, and engineers bringing in a portable metal Bailey bridge.
The scale of destruction was becoming clearer yesterday, with roads, bridges and hydropower infrastructure destroyed and survivors describing scenes of extraordinary devastation.
The damage also extended to Nepal's key hydropower sector, with several projects — both operating and under construction — hit hard.
The Nepal Electricity Authority said 11 hydropower stations and one solar power station had stopped operating, with a combined capacity of 431.1 megawatts.
That is about 10% of Nepal's installed electricity generation capacity, according to the authority.
Another 15 power projects under construction, with a combined planned capacity of 470 megawatts, have also been damaged, according to preliminary information.