Rescues underway as two men pulled alive from Nepal hydro tunnel more than a week after flooding

• New rescue: Two people have been rescued from a hydropower tunnel in Nepal, a dramatic breakthrough for a desperate, round-the-clock effort in treacherous conditions more than a week after catastrophic floods hit the country’s border with China.

• Voices heard: Rescue operations are underway. A local police chief and a lawmaker said voices have been heard from inside the tunnels of the stricken plant, after the disaster trapped hundreds of workers inside multiple Himalayan energy projects.

• Death toll: The number of people killed in Nepal following the flash floods now exceeds 1,290.

Learn more about how to help flood victims here.

Second person rescued from power plant tunnels, police chief says

A second person has now been rescued from inside the tunnels of the stricken Nepali hydropower plant, Bipin Regmi, police chief for the district of Nuwakot, told CNN.

Shri Ram Neupane, a local lawmaker, confirmed the rescue on Facebook and posted a picture of the man lying on a stretcher with an oxygen mask on his face.

Dramatic video shows man being pulled alive from tunnel

Cheers erupted as a man was pulled alive from a tunnel at Nepal’s Trishuli 3A Hydropower project on Friday morning, after being trapped inside for nine days after catastrophic floods tore through the region.

Video showed the man being hoisted by a group of rescuers from a hole bored down into the tunnel, as onlookers clapped and cheered.

Dozens of hydropower worker are believed to have been near the powerhouse inside the tunnel when the disaster stuck last Wednesday.

"This is a world first": Tunnel expert lauds rescue success

Arnold Dix, a disaster-response expert and tunnel engineering professor advising the rescue efforts, described the operation as a dangerous and unprecedented attempt to identify buried tunnel entrances.

“It appears we now have proof of concept for a methodology to perform a rescue, because this is a world first,” he said from Singapore, en route to Nepal.

“We’ve never done this before, and now we have a proof. And there’s other power stations we still haven’t got to.”

“Of course, we pause and celebrate. But it now also means we need to take a back step and go,” he told CNN.

Dix described the hydropower tunnels left as “full of water” in the aftermath of the floods. Teams have to make the high-risk decisions to blow up “rocks the size of cars” to reach people trapped inside, he said.

“So we’re tunneling along under the roof, and we know in our heads that underneath us are likely people who died. So there’s a whole lot of psychology and all of that,” he said.

Man rescued, voices heard at Nepali power plant where scores trapped

A man has been rescued from inside the tunnels of a stricken Nepali hydropower plant, where more voices have been heard, local officials told CNN, nine 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 man was pulled from inside the Trishuli 3A hydropower plant, where an operation has been underway to bore into a tunnel to search for 42 workers that were unaccounted for.

“Rescuers heard voices,” said Bipin Regmi, police chief in the flood-hit district of Nuwakot told CNN, adding a medical team was on its way to the site.

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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• 最新救援进展：两名被困尼泊尔水电站隧道的人员获救，这是在灾难性洪水袭击该国与中国边境一周多后，救援人员在危险条件下夜以继日、奋战到底的重大突破。

• 救援行动正在进行中。当地一名警长和一名议员表示，在灾难发生后，数百名工人被困在喜马拉雅山脉多个能源项目中的受损电厂隧道内，他们听到了来自隧道内的声音。

• 死亡人数：尼泊尔山洪暴发造成的死亡人数现已超过 1290 人。

点击这里了解更多帮助洪灾受害者的方法。

警方负责人称，第二名从发电厂隧道中获救的人已经获救。

努瓦科特地区警察局长比平·雷格米告诉 CNN，目前已有第二人从尼泊尔受损水电站的隧道内获救。

当地议员 Shri Ram Neupane 在 Facebook 上证实了救援行动，并发布了一张该男子躺在担架上，脸上戴着氧气面罩的照片。

惊险视频显示，一名男子被从隧道中活生生地救出。

周五上午，尼泊尔特里苏里 3A 水电站的隧道发生灾难性洪水，一名男子被困其中九天后，被从隧道中救出，现场爆发出欢呼声。

视频显示，一群救援人员将这名男子从隧道中挖出的洞里吊了出来，围观者鼓掌欢呼。

据信，上周三灾难发生时，数十名水电站工人正在隧道内的发电厂附近。

“这是世界首例”：隧道专家盛赞救援成功

参与救援工作的灾难应对专家兼隧道工程教授阿诺德·迪克斯将此次行动描述为一次危险且史无前例的尝试，旨在识别被掩埋的隧道入口。

“看来我们现在已经找到了一种救援方法的概念验证，因为这是世界首例，”他在前往尼泊尔的途中从新加坡说道。

“我们以前从未做过这样的事，现在我们有了证据。而且还有其他发电站我们还没去过。”

“当然，我们会停下来庆祝。但这同时也意味着我们需要后退一步，然后再继续前进，”他告诉CNN。

迪克斯形容洪水过后，水力发电隧道“灌满了水”。他说，救援队不得不冒着极大的风险，炸毁“汽车大小的巨石”，才能救出被困在隧道里的人们。

“所以我们正在屋顶下挖掘隧道，我们心里清楚，下面很可能埋着死去的人。所以这里面有很多心理因素等等，”他说。

一名男子获救，尼泊尔发电厂内传出人声，此前数十人被困。

据当地官员向 CNN 透露，一名男子已从尼泊尔一座受损水电站的隧道内获救，隧道内还传出更多人声。此前，大规模山洪和山体滑坡已导致数百名工人被困在喜马拉雅山脉多个能源项目中长达九天。

在危险条件下，经过不懈的、昼夜不停的救援行动，救援工作取得了戏剧性的突破。这名男子被从特里苏里 3A 水电站内部救出。此前，救援人员一直在该电站内挖掘隧道，搜寻 42 名下落不明的工人。

“救援人员听到了人声，”受洪水侵袭的努瓦科特地区警察局长比平·雷格米告诉 CNN，并补充说，一支医疗队正在赶往现场。

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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