Voices heard at flood-stricken Nepali power plant where scores trapped

NEPAL ARMY/Handout/Reuters

Voices have been heard from inside the tunnels of a stricken Nepali hydropower plant, a local police chief and a lawmaker told CNN, the first signs of life eight days after massive flash floods and landslides trapped hundreds of workers inside multiple Himalayan energy projects.

In a dramatic breakthrough for what has been a desperate, round-the-clock rescue effort in treacherous conditions, the voices were heard inside the Trishuli 3A hydropower plant, where a massive operation has been underway to bore into a tunnel to search for 42 workers that were unaccounted for.

The tunnel that leads to the underground powerhouse there, where dozens of people were working when the catastrophic flood hit, is more than four kilometers (2.5 miles) long.

Hopes had been fading for the safe rescue of the workers at the plants that run along Nepal’s Trishuli River – among them foreigners from China, South Korea and India. A torrent of cement-like floodwater had engulfed the river and its surrounding areas, killing more than 1,200 people in Nepal.

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Parikshit Mehra, an Indian army colonel, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper , who reported from the Trishuli 3A site earlier this week, that for a rescue mission like this one, “the first 48 hours are the most crucial.”

“People who are stuck tend to panic much more than when they are outside in the open,” Mehra said in an interview with Cooper earlier this week, outside the tunnels where the colonel was leading a team of specialized troops.

“Getting stuck in a tunnel you can’t see anything. Generally if you stay in the dark you get disoriented in about 24-25 hours,” he said. “Beyond that, (after) 48 hours, you start hallucinating. And then I think from there on it’s always a fight.”

But, Mehra added: “There have been miracles.”

尼泊尔军队/供图/路透社

当地一名警察局长和一名议员告诉 CNN，在尼泊尔一座受损水电站的隧道内听到了人声，这是在大规模山洪和山体滑坡导致数百名工人被困在喜马拉雅山脉多个能源项目八天后，首次出现生命迹象。

在危险条件下，经过一场绝望的、昼夜不停的救援行动，救援工作取得了戏剧性的突破。救援人员在特里苏里 3A 水电站内听到了声音。此前，救援人员一直在该电站进行大规模的隧道挖掘作业，以搜寻 42 名下落不明的工人。

通往地下发电厂的隧道长达四公里（2.5英里），灾难性洪水来袭时，数十人正在那里工作。

人们一度对尼泊尔特里苏里河沿岸工厂工人的安全获救抱有渺茫希望，​​这些工人中包括来自中国、韩国和印度的外国人。一股如同水泥般汹涌的洪水淹没了河流及其周边地区，在尼泊尔造成超过1200人死亡。

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印度陆军上校帕里克希特·梅赫拉告诉 CNN 记者安德森·库珀（库珀本周早些时候在 Trishuli 3A 现场进行了报道），对于像这样的救援任务，“最初的 48 小时是最关键的”。

“被困的人比在外面空旷的地方更容易恐慌，”梅赫拉本周早些时候在隧道外接受库珀采访时说道，当时库珀上校正率领一支特种部队。

“被困在隧道里，你什么都看不见。通常情况下，如果一直待在黑暗中，大约24到25个小时就会迷失方向，”他说。“超过48小时后，你就会开始出现幻觉。然后，我认为从那时起，就只能是一场搏斗了。”

但梅赫拉补充说：“奇迹也发生过。”