Five bodies were recovered from Nepal’s flood-buried Chilime hydropower project on Wednesday after specialised Indian Army personnel and Nepalese rescuers reached its underground powerhouse by digging the final stretch by hand when excavators and wheel loaders could advance no farther. Six workers were believed trapped inside after the Aug 26 disaster, and search continued for the remaining worker.
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The operation began in severely waterlogged conditions and the team used safety ropes and improvised floats to enter the tunnel. Heavy machinery subsequently cleared much of the mud, boulders and debris, but rescuers had to adopt a rat-hole-style technique to manually cut through the final 35 metres of an approximately 150-metre obstruction leading towards the powerhouse.
The method resembled the manual excavation used during the 2023 Silkyara tunnel rescue in Uttarakhand, where rat-hole miners cleared the final portion after drilling machinery became ineffective. At Chilime too, personnel crawled into the restricted space and removed debris by hand as teams outside carried it away.
Hopes of finding survivors had briefly risen after engineer Shriram Neupane reported what appeared to be voices or echoes from deeper inside the tunnel. “We are expecting some good news,” Neupane had said on Monday, expressing confidence that a breakthrough was expected within hours.
Ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party MP and engineer Sagar Dhakal, who worked alongside rescue teams for several days, said, “I tried my best as an MP, engineer, Nepali and a normal human being, leaving no stone unturned. I carried the heavy load where it was necessary to carry it, and I was the labourer where it was necessary to be."
Dhakal said the operation repeatedly ran into technical setbacks before teams found a way through. He thanked Chilime engineers, Nepal Army, Indian Army, Nepal Electricity Authority personnel and locals for working around the clock.
The floods had also hit 12 hydropower projects in Nepal — eight operational plants with 281MW capacity and four under construction with 388MW capacity. The disaster has so far left 1,442 people dead and around 5,719 missing across Nepal and Tibet.
