Following the flash floods in Nepal, several people remain stuck in tunnels, with rescue operations to extract them underway. Recent visuals which have emerged from one of these sites in Rasuwa show the inside of a tunnel where at least six people remain trapped.
Each such site may have multiple tunnels, which increases chances that the actual number of people stranded may be more. However, there are 11 hydropower sites in these districts, of which five remain under construction.
Those trapped are from Nepal, India, China, South Korea, and Germany, according to survivors who spoke to HT.
This comes amid Nepal government denying help from foreign countries saying that its security agencies are capable of handling the rescue operation. “The main thing is that in one place where there is a hydroelectric project, there could be possibility of people who may be a tunnel. “There may be some medical teams also going out there.
So, we are sending a team to help with the experts in tunneling,” Jaishankar said, adding that 85 Indians were rescued in Nepal on Friday. He said 315 still remain out of contact. At least 626 people have been confirmed dead in Nepal following the disaster, while 2,426 people remain unaccounted for.
Jaishankar said that India had given Nepal “a range of support offers”, which Kathmandu is evaluating. However, he said India was sending bridges which “can be quickly put together along with a team. If they require NDRF people to go, we will send them,” Jaishankar said, adding that two planes of relief materials had already been sent and a third one would be sent later in the day. This includes hundreds of foreign nationals from India, Malaysia, Australia and the US, Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority said in a post on X.
Meanwhile, India has sent a team of tunneling experts to Nepal to aid rescue efforts, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Friday.
