Rescuers raced Monday to free hundreds of workers believed to be trapped in tunnels at hydropower sites that were buried in mud by catastrophic flooding on the Nepal-China border, as the death toll climbed and increasingly desperate families searched for missing loved ones.
The combined deaths in Nepal and China surpassed 950, with more than 4,400 people missing. A private-sector association representing power companies said at least 900 workers were unaccounted for at 12 hydropower projects damaged by the flash floods in Nepal’s Rasuwa and Nuwakot districts.
About 500 of those workers were believed to be trapped in tunnels. At least one expert said that some workers could have access to oxygen, but others warned that the chances of finding survivors were diminishing. As the rescue efforts intensified, four bodies were recovered from three mud-filled tunnels, Nepal’s army said.
Some workers managed to call for help when the disaster struck last Wednesday, and others who managed to flee reported to authorities and relatives that many of their colleagues were still in the tunnels, said Mohan Kumar Dangi, president of the Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal, or IPPAN.
The floods have also overrun hydropower facilities, knocking out about 10% of Nepal’s power capacity. Once the immediate aftermath of the disaster is dealt with, the question will be how to restore power plants, roads, bridges, schools and health facilities without exposing them to the same vulnerabilities, disaster experts said.
Rescue efforts were focused on people trapped in the gigantic tunnels built for controlling the flow of water.
“These tunnels are big enough to drive trucks through,” said Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz in Austria based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. “And from what we understand, they have managed to get oxygen to some of those stuck inside and are trying to rescue them now. It’s a race for time, though, as people need food and water.”
In the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project, in the hard-hit Rasuwa district, at least 576 people were missing, Dangi said, adding that around 300 of them were believed to be trapped inside the project’s tunnel.
At the Trishuli-3 Hydropower Project, crews were working to descend about 15 meters (50 feet) into a tunnel in an effort to reach those believed trapped inside, according to Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet, Nepal’s army spokesman.
Workers shoveling mud from a flood-ravaged power station in Dhading, Nepal, told The Associated Press that the station is a key connection for providing power to over 20,000 people in the region.
Hydropower projects that were operating or under construction were fully or partly destroyed across Rasuwa, Nuwakot and Dhading, among the worst-hit districts.
Hundreds of workers in Nepal are unaccounted for from a dozen hydropower projects, according to the Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal. Many had taken shelter in the tunnels but are stuck, waiting to be rescued, according to officials.
“The tunnels are built to access hydropower infrastructure and to divert water,” Steiner said, describing the tunnels as big enough for trucks to pass through.
Apart from the hydropower projects, tens of kilometers (miles) of roads, multiple bridges and essential buildings like schools and hospitals have been destroyed.
Ramraj Narasimhan, a senior director with the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, said rebuilding should focus on continuity of services rather than trying to make every structure indestructible.
“If it gets damaged, let it get damaged, but can we build in redundancy in the system?” he said.
That can mean choosing a better location for construction, alternate routes, backup power, improved early warning and financial tools such as insurance to speed recovery, Narasimhan said. Risk assessments should examine where a river bends, where slopes are unstable and where a single failure could cut off several communities.
Narasimhan’s organization estimates that $124 billion worth of Nepal’s infrastructure is exposed to climate-driven disasters, creating the potential for hundreds of millions of dollars in losses each year. A report by the coalition earlier this year found that Nepal’s average annual losses are nearly $760 million from various disasters, while the country’s national disaster funds is only a fraction of this amount.
Climate scientists said the Himalayan region — which is warming faster than many other parts of the world — is particularly at risk from increasing global warming as a result of human-caused climate change.
Climate experts said the flooding adds to evidence that infrastructure planning in the Himalayas should account for disasters that are increasing as the climate warms. Glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya are losing ice at an accelerating rate, while permafrost degradation, unstable slopes, glacial lakes and increasingly erratic rainfall are raising the risks of floods, landslides and debris flows, according to reports by Kathmandu-based climate research group International Center for Integrated Mountain Development.
The stakes are particularly high for Nepal because hydropower is both a foundation of its electricity grid and an important source of economic growth and export revenue. Much of the country’s potential is run-of-river hydropower, Narasimhan said, meaning facilities are closely tied to steep river corridors where land is limited and hazards can cascade quickly.
Steiner said smaller floods can sometimes be managed with diversions that keep debris and high flows away from expensive infrastructure and tunnels. But for events as large as the latest flood, he said, physical defenses may be overwhelmed. In those cases, early warning becomes the critical protection for people.
He said the flood was detected at the China-Nepal border after moving rapidly from its source, leaving little warning time upstream. But there was still time as the flood traveled downstream toward hydropower sites, raising questions about whether warnings could have reached workers sooner.
The disaster is also likely to intensify scrutiny of where future projects are approved. Himanshu Thakkar, coordinator of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, said environmental, social and disaster-risk assessments need to reflect the specific landscape and past hazards of each valley, backed by land-use rules and stronger accountability.
Hydropower projects can themselves become “force multipliers” when large structures, debris and altered river channels add to downstream damage, Thakkar said. He argued that Nepal should also consider more decentralized solar power as part of a broader energy mix.
Thakkar said the question now is not only how fast Nepal can rebuild, but what it chooses to put back in the path of the next flood.
In October 2024, more than 30 hydropower facilities in Nepal were affected by floods and landslides caused by heavy rain, reducing the country’s electricity production capacity by at least 1,100 MW.
Officials said that the floods damaged 11 hydropower plants in operation, with a combined capacity of 625.96 MW, and caused other plants to shut down completely, resulting in a 1,100 MW loss of hydropower capacity. At least 15 hydropower plants under construction were also damaged, with a total capacity of 1,010 MW, The Rising Nepal reported. Nepal’s typical capacity that time of year was around 3,000 MW, meaning the country lost nearly a third of its generating power at the time, XINHUANET reported.
This article contains reporting from the Associated Press.
