Nepal rescuers blast hillside in search of hydropower workers as families wait anxiously

ByJake Lapham, Kelly Ng and BBC Nepali.

Key points

• The agency additionally revised its estimate of the number of missing to 3, 925, of whom 592 are foreign nationals.
• I wish he would come home, Anushila Bhandari, wife of Aurus Bhandari, a 33-year-old engineer missing on a project site, informed BBC Nepali.
• Nepalese leader Shah remarked rescue operations had been "intensified", noting that 11, 379 residents had been rescued so far.
• Another family member anxiously awaiting news is Priya Kharel, whose brother Milan was working as an engineer in the Upper Trishuli-1 plant when the floods hit.
• In Tibet, the official death toll is 16, with 546 documented missing, according to Chinese state media.

Notably, the families of more than 600 workers believed to be trapped in a vast network of mud-filled tunnels along Nepal's Trishuli River are clinging to hope their loved ones can be discovered alive.

Rescuers continued battling to reach them on Monday, using explosives to blast into the hillside before pumping air into the Trishuli-3A site – fearing a critical window to reach survivors is closing.

"I wish we could find him. I wish he would come home, " Anushila Bhandari, wife of Aurus Bhandari, a 33-year-old engineer missing on a project site, informed BBC Nepali.

It comes as the death toll from the flood disaster on the Nepal-Tibet border reached 939, according to the country's disaster management authority.

Meanwhile, the agency additionally revised its estimate of the number of missing to 3, 925, of whom 592 are foreign nationals.

Roughly one in seven missing individuals are believed to be workers at the hydropower plants. Nepalese Prime Minister Balendra Shah remarked on Monday that 279 residents had been rescued from the sites.

While experts from India, Korea and Australia are additionally involved, the rescue operation is being spearheaded by an international team created up of Chinese and Nepalese military personnel.

"I still have a 50% hope that he is alive because there is an oxygen system inside, " Sita Pandey, whose husband was working in the plant when the floods hit, informed Nepalese daily Kantipur.

Nepal relies heavily on hydropower and has spent years developing the projects along its mountainous river systems. At least 11 projects either completed or under construction were damaged in the floods, authorities remarked.

Rescuers began pumping air into a tunnel over the weekend, but the families of those trapped say that should have been done earlier.

Meanwhile, a team was able to obtain into a tunnel leading to one hydropower plant earlier on Monday, but withdrew after finding no one there.

"The longer it takes, the more our hope dies. This operation must move much faster since every second is meaningful to us, " Jiban Khadka, whose relative is additionally trapped inside the plant, informed Kantipur. "It's a frustratingly slow operation, " Khadka continued.

"Those who returned from the hydropower site said there were people inside the tunnel, " she informed BBC News Nepali. "So there is hope that if the army reaches them quickly, they can be saved."

Australian geologist Arnold Dix. This person has been helping Nepalese authorities with the underground search operations remotely, remarked that even being able to locate a tunnel "under the sea of mud and rock" was a "miracle".

In the few tunnels they have managed to penetrate, rescuers are now trying to find their way into the turbine rooms. This would involve further digging "with hands and shovels", Dix informed ABC News.

"We can't get any big machinery in there because all the roads are gone, " he remarked.

"We additionally don't know if the turbines have been blown up at all. This is well outside anything we've learnt in our textbooks."

Meanwhile, in Chitwan, a district far downstream from where the floods first hit, makeshift burials were taking place after the Himalayan nation's river systems brought almost 300 dead bodies to its banks.

As men wearing white Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) including masks carried unidentified corpses into trucks, the air was thick with the smell of decay.

Over the weekend, a sizeable portion of the forest outside the city was dug up. Medical staff and volunteers worked to extract DNA from the unidentified remains.

Ganesh Aryaal, the chief district officer, informed BBC Nepali that relatives will still be able to extricate the remains of their loved ones, once they are identified through DNA testing.

"We don't have enough freezers here. We had to choose this last alternative of temporary burial system. We are really overwhelmed, " he remarked.

In Tibet, the official death toll is 16, with 546 documented missing, according to Chinese state media. Footage of the floods has been heavily censored in China.

Chinese authorities have imposed "administrative penalties" – which can range from warnings and fines to short detentions – on individuals speculating online that the casualty numbers are a lot higher than noted.

In Nepal, authorities have additionally ordered the removal of online content that they deem to be misinformation concerning the floods.

Extra reporting by Jugal Purohit in Chitwan and Binita Dahal, BBC Nepali.

For now, nepal rescuers blast hillside in search of hydropower workers as families wait remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.