Nepal Floods: Tunnel Engineer Describes 20-Minute Escape as Death Toll Tops 1,000
· World · BBC News, Times of India
Hydropower worker Pemba Dundu Tamang ran for about 20 minutes to escape flash floods from the Trishuli River that crashed into the tunnel he was helping to build in Nuwakot, central Nepal, last week. A sudden, violent gust of air sent plywood and heavy machinery flying before the water surged through, he told the BBC. Tamang lost six relatives — his mother, elder brother, sister-in-law, and three of their children — when their riverside home was swept away. Nepal's death toll from the floods has exceeded 1,000, with roughly 4,000 people still missing, including potentially hundreds of labourers working in hydropower tunnels along the river. The Nepal Army says soldiers are pumping air into tunnels as part of a search-and-rescue operation and have been deployed to collect bodies and prevent disease outbreaks.
Why it matters
Nepal generates over 99% of its electricity from hydropower, and the Upper Trishuli 3B plant where Tamang worked — set to open next year — is among key infrastructure projects now damaged, threatening the country's power supply and the livelihoods of thousands of tunnel and construction workers concentrated along these rivers.
Read the original report — BBC News
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