Nepal rescuers blast hillside searching for trapped hydropower workers as families wait

Rescue teams in Nepal are racing to reach more than 600 workers believed trapped in mud-choked tunnels at the Trishuli-3A hydropower site. On Monday, crews detonated explosives to break through the hillside and pumped air into the tunnels, hoping to reach any survivors before a critical window closes.

Anushila Bhandari, wife of missing 33-year-old engineer Aurus Bhandari, told BBC Nepali she still hopes he will come home. Sita Pandey, whose husband was inside the plant when floods struck, said she holds roughly 50% hope he is alive because of an oxygen system in the tunnel.

Nepal's disaster management authority put the death toll from the flood disaster on the Nepal-Tibet border at 939, and revised the number of missing to 3,925, including 592 foreign nationals. Around one in seven of the missing are believed to be hydropower plant workers.

Prime Minister Balendra Shah said on Monday that 279 people had been rescued from the sites, with 11,379 rescued overall. The operation is led by an international team of Chinese and Nepalese military personnel, supported by experts from India, South Korea and Australia.

At least 11 hydropower projects, either completed or under construction, were damaged in the floods, as Nepal has long relied on and invested heavily in such projects along its mountain rivers. Air was only pumped into one tunnel starting over the weekend, which relatives say should have happened sooner.

A team entered a tunnel leading to one plant on Monday but withdrew after finding no one inside. Jiban Khadka, whose relative is trapped in the plant, described the operation as frustratingly slow, saying every second matters. Priya Kharel, whose brother Milan worked as an engineer at the Upper Trishuli-1 plant, said accounts from those who escaped suggest people remain inside the tunnel, giving her hope a swift rescue could still save them.