Nepal Floods: 2 Rescued Alive After 9 Days Trapped in Tunnel | Rescue Operation | CNN

Viewers, as we have been tracking the rescue and relief operations in the flood-hit Nepal, there are certain instances that have come to light. One such we'll take you through right now, which indeed personifies the word miracle. This is another miraculous rescue operation that we will take you through. It's in a tunnel in Nepal where two men pulled alive out of the very tunnel nine days after the Nepal floods. They had been survived. They were stranded there. They had been struggling to survive, but now they have been pulled out. Two men have been rescued alive from the Trishuli 3A hydropower tunnel in Nepal, nine days after the August 26th flash flood hit the very region. The rescued men have been identified as Sanjay Shah, a mechanical foreman, and Kabir Maharajan, a mechanical supervisor. Now, Shah was rescued earlier on Friday, followed by Maharajan, according to information from the rescue operations. The rescue, in fact, came after the teams heard human voices from inside the very tunnel, raising hopes that more people could, in fact, still be alive and stranded. Rescuers reportedly called out, do not panic, we are here to rescue you. It's a dramatic scene that unfolded that we are speaking about and referring to visuals of which you can see on your screens right now. When the rescuers, in fact, cried out to them, they received a response from inside to their relief. Ashutosh Mishra, who has been tracking all of these developments from ground zero since day one, brings us this report. Ashutosh, a very good morning to you. These are the moments that indeed brings in hope during such situations. This miraculous rescue operation, two people who were stranded for nine long days, managed to survive under dire circumstances and then were rescued from there. Eventually, last night, during the operation at Trishuli, phase one, they heard the noises and eventually it was said that it was only one wife and later they realized, no, there were more than one person. And since there have been, you know, vertical drilling as well, that was also done to that tunnel area. And after crossing 70 meters in those pipes, they realized that there could be possibility because inside there was adequate oxygen level and further 80 to 90 meters onwards, the water level was receding and then there was a safe passage in the hydro project and perhaps why they survived. Now, that gives the hope and again, we call it during, when we see the scars of devastation all around me, there are also hope and there are also miracles that happen when you see one house was erected. Again, there are multiple such houses, many people in Devigarh, which was burn affected. I mean, no one knows the number of people who will be probably buried under these muck and debris. There have been miracles. The people who got, you know, alarmed at the very right time, they were able to escape with the fury. They ran to the mountains, these again, these houses, now it is also the challenge to restart the life. But again, that gives some miracle and a hope and perhaps why more and more agencies have been roped in. We see the, at the multiple such cases, there are NDRF have been placed in, there are Chinese agencies, the Korean agencies, the Australian, the Americans, the Nepali army, the APF, all the expert agencies with their advanced machinery. So the logistics was very much challenging and we see when the logistics were moved, there is a, you know, it is a massive success after 10 days, two people have been rescued and that gives a hope that many more who will be probably trapped. And again, those people who have been survived, they have been, you know, rescued, they'll give more account of possibility of locations of those other people who were stranded in the tunnel. But in the meanwhile, let me also take you to the ground report in Devigarh, what is happening here, that now since these houses have survived the fury, it is now challenged to restore. So along with the other authorities and agencies, there are scouts and other, uh, you know, the groups and organizations, they are making sure that all possible, you know, the, uh, belonging can be, uh, you know, rescued because people need to start the life, they survive, the houses survive. So it is also the important critical assets recovery at a very important time because of the door to door operation we saw with the sniffer dogs, the police was carrying out to find out the people who are missing, even if their mortal remains could be taken out. Let me take you to inside the house, that how these operations are very critical. And to understand that, that in, in the flood, because these areas where I'm at, particularly this house, this maintains a distance of around, say around a hundred meters from the, you know, the furious Bhatkoshi or Trishuli, uh, I'll tell Sanjay to come a little closer. Look at this. That explains the mayhem and the fury of devastation. These are all scarred left as the water level started receding again in these houses going. That's a, uh, you know, a senior citizen at the couple that survived the fury on a very right time. They got information about that. There was one police station in Devigarh who alerted everyone, the maximum people from Devigarh, they were able to evacuate to the safer area. And if I take you further, look at it, how these operations are very critical because there are not even passage to go first floor floor, ground floor, second floor, everything has gone in the debris and muck. And that's why these operations of the restoration. As we see, the army is now making a belly bridge at the same time, there are pulley ropeway, other mechanisms also being built, you know, being built. And in these operations, the scout teams, look at this, that's the first, second floor. Everything has been buried in the muck. And now evacuating people to those who possibly may trap those areas which are disconnected. That makes it very critical at the very same time, recovery of the, uh, you know, the important assets for the people, those who survived. So that's a massive scale of operation going on here in Devigarh, in Nepal. Absolutely, Ashutosh. And just looking at the rescue operations and how they've been working around the clock and the visuals that you're bringing us from these very regions which have receding waters now. One part I want to go back to, Ashutosh, is the condition that these two men who've been miraculously saved from the tunnel, the condition that they were in, because a lot of it, as we can see in the visual, they were almost buried under the ground. That could be seen. There's mud and silt all over them. And they were stuck in that very situation. And there were like rescue operators who came in, officers who came in, pulled them out of that entire mud that they were stuck in. And this is from what you have seen so far across all of the regions where rescue operations continue. How many such instances have you actually seen? Across this Luang Port landscape throughout, I have been travelling to the last village that was washed away. Number of people, number of people, because they were buried not in just visible, you know, the layer of the muck, but 8 to 10 feet. And when the slipper dogs were called, even in Devigarh, these operations, they started to smell it. So the sanitation department was called out. And then volunteers, the police, locals, they started going door to door. I mean, just an example, this is second floor of the building and everything is under the muck. So you can imagine 20 to 30 feet of muck. And then, you know, going and excavation of these particular areas, the primary, you know, the priority of the agency was to first rescue the survivors, evacuate them to safer places and then find out the number of missing persons. And hence, for the last 10 days, the number of missing persons has been on rise. It is going up beyond 5,000. The number of people killed is more than 1,250. And number, why is the fear to be right? Because number of people are missing even after 10 days. There is no clue about those people. And it is up to that, you know, there is an apprehension that because of the entire landscape, which is covered under the figure, we probably will be trapped. So once the restoration begins, once the road clearing begins, once these villages, these towns, when, you know, the restoration process begins, probably in the coming days, but weeks and months, there will be more and more recoveries of the bodies that will be done. But for now, the priority is the rescue relief operation and at the very same time, restoration process for Nepal. Right, Ashutosh, thank you for bringing us all of these reports from ground zero incessantly since the very next day when the rescue operations began, because you can take a look at these visuals that we will leave you with at this point on this very story, the kind of challenge that these rescuers are facing to bring these people out stranded under layers and layers of mud and tricky terrain that we are speaking of here. Those are the visuals that leave an impact just to give us an understanding of what this region went through. It's unimaginable what the people who actually had to face there, in fact, while they were residing when the floods hit.