Two workers pulled alive from a flooded Nepalese hydropower tunnel have given rescuers and grieving families a reason to hope—but the breakthrough has also exposed how uncertain, and vast, the disaster’s human toll remains.

Sanjay Shah and Kabir Maharjan were rescued from the Trishuli 3A project nine days after a glacier-triggered surge of water, mud and debris tore through the Nepal-Tibet border region. Both were reportedly in stable condition. Shah, a foreman, told rescuers he had stayed behind to help evacuate roughly 40 to 45 colleagues before becoming trapped himself. “Since I was in the control room, my responsibility was to save everyone’s lives,” he said.¹

The rescue has strengthened the case for continuing dangerous searches inside the region’s hydropower tunnels. Arnold Dix, an Australian tunnelling expert advising Nepal, called the operation “a real triumph for humans and humanity,” while warning that rescuers themselves could be drowned by unstable rock and rising water.² Officials say voices have been heard underground, and authorities remain hopeful that more workers are alive.

Yet the optimism is set against a sharply changing statistical picture. Reports cite at least 1,200 deaths and more than 5,000 people missing nationwide, while local authorities estimate that about 900 workers are missing from 12 hydropower projects, with roughly 500 possibly trapped in tunnels.³ A more conservative account similarly puts the number of tunnel victims at about 900, while stressing the broader displacement caused by the disaster.⁴

The common ground is clear: two survivors demonstrate that endurance underground is possible. The disagreement—and the unresolved reality—is over how many people remain beyond reach, and whether rescue teams can find them before water, debris and time close the tunnels for good.