Rescue teams continued battling on Monday to reach more than 600 workers believed trapped in mud-filled tunnels along Nepal's Trishuli River following a catastrophic glacial collapse that has killed at least 939 people with 3,925 unaccounted for across Nepal and Tibet. Army personnel have resorted to using explosives to blast into the hillside and pump air into the Trishuli-3A site, as families cling to hope their loved ones can be found alive before a critical window to reach survivors closes.
Among those missing is Jit Bahadur Chaudhary, a hydropower station worker at the Trishuli 3B site who has lived with a family in Tal-y-bont, Ceredigion for 25 years and is regarded as family despite no blood relation. His family in Wales has been unable to establish contact since the disaster struck last week.
To be honest, since Saturday we have lost hope,said Jyoti Upadhyay, who relocated from Nepal to Wales five years ago.
Within 20 minutes the connections were all down. The phone signals have not been working and that is why it has been so difficult to hear anything.
The disaster was triggered by a glacial collapse in the Himalayas, where part of a glacier disintegrated with tremendous force. According to the US Geological Survey, the collapsed glacier struck the bottom of a valley with such power that it registered a tremor measuring 5.2 in magnitude, triggering what the agency described as
subsequent catastrophic impacts downstream— powerful floodwaters and debris travelled approximately 62 miles (100 kilometres) downstream, devastating everything in their path. The flood damaged multiple hydropower plants along the river corridor, including Upper Trishuli-1, Trishuli-3A and the Trishuli-3B substation, with flood damage cutting nearly 200 megawatts of power from Nepal's national grid, and the Trishuli 3B Hub Substation reported completely swept away.
The death toll from the flood disaster on the Nepal-Tibet border has been revised upward, with Nepal's disaster management authority confirming 939 deaths. The agency also revised its estimate of the number of missing to 3,925, of whom 592 are foreign nationals. According to later reporting, the number of missing on the Nepalese side had risen to 2,498, while the combined missing toll across both countries reached 3,048. More than 3,700 people had been rescued in Nepal by Sunday, and Nepalese Prime Minister Balendra Shah said on Monday that 279 people had been rescued from the hydropower sites specifically, with 11,379 people rescued overall.
Who is trapped and why are they there?
Roughly one in seven missing people are believed to be workers at the hydropower plants. According to rescue operations updates, Nepal's government has indicated that more than 100 workers may still be alive and trapped inside multiple tunnels at hydropower projects, providing a potential lifeline for those missing. Each hydropower plant employs hundreds of workers, including local and migrant labourers and high-skilled engineers.
The region also attracts both tourists and pilgrims for religious reasons, meaning visitors were present alongside hydropower workers when the flood struck. Upadhyay noted that
the area is important for pilgrimage to many religions,creating a concentration of people in an area that, while accustomed to natural hazards, had never experienced flooding of this magnitude.
How are rescue teams attempting to reach trapped workers?
The rescue operation is being spearheaded by an international team made up of Chinese and Nepalese military personnel, while experts from India, Korea and Australia are also involved. Rescuers began pumping air into a tunnel over the weekend, but the families of those trapped say that should have been done earlier. A team was able to get into a tunnel leading to one hydropower plant earlier on Monday, but withdrew after finding no one there.
Helicopter access remains the only viable route to some sites, but the terrain presents extraordinary challenges.
We know that the only way to reach the site is by helicopter. You need special skills to be able to drive a helicopter in that area. It is an extremely difficult place. We have been waiting for special machines to be able to work through the mud.According to rescue operations updates, teams have resumed drilling and tunnel access work after rain and rising river waters had slowed earlier efforts, with focus concentrated on the Trishuli 3A and 3B sites.
In the few tunnels rescuers have managed to penetrate, they are now trying to find their way into the turbine rooms. Australian geologist Arnold Dix, who has been helping Nepalese authorities with the underground search operations remotely, said that even being able to locate a tunnel
under the sea of mud and rockwas a
miracle. This would involve further digging
with hands and shovels, Dix told ABC News.
We can't get any big machinery in there because all the roads are gone. We also don't know if the turbines have been blown up at all... This is well outside anything we've learnt in our textbooks.
What are families saying about the rescue pace?
Families of the trapped workers have expressed frustration about the speed of rescue operations.
I wish we could find him. I wish he would come home,said Anushila Bhandari, wife of Aurus Bhandari, a 33-year-old engineer missing on a project site, told a national broadcaster's Nepali service. Sita Pandey, whose husband was working in the plant when the floods hit, said
I still have a 50% hope that he is alive because there is an oxygen system inside.
Jiban Khadka, whose relative is trapped inside the plant, expressed the urgency felt by families waiting for news.
The longer it takes, the more our hope dies. This operation must move much faster because every second is meaningful to us,he told a Nepalese daily.
It's a frustratingly slow operation.Priya Kharel, whose brother Milan was working as an engineer in the Upper Trishuli-1 plant when the floods hit, said
Those who returned from the hydropower site said there were people inside the tunnel. So there is hope that if the army reaches them quickly, they can be saved.
What is happening with the deceased and missing?
In Chitwan, a district far downstream from where the floods first hit, makeshift burials were taking place after the Himalayan nation's river systems brought nearly 300 dead bodies to its banks. The air was thick with the smell of decay, as men wearing white Personal Protective Equipment including masks carried unidentified corpses into trucks. Over the weekend, a large portion of the forest outside the city was dug up. Medical staff and volunteers worked to extract DNA from the unidentified remains.
Ganesh Aryaal, the chief district officer, told a national broadcaster's Nepali service that relatives will still be able to extricate the remains of their loved ones once they are identified through DNA testing.
We don't have enough freezers here... We had to choose this last alternative of temporary burial system. We are really overwhelmed,he said.
In Tibet, the official death toll is 16, with 546 reported missing, according to Chinese state media. Footage of the floods has been heavily censored in China. Chinese authorities have imposed
administrative penalties— which can range from warnings and fines to short detentions — on people speculating online that the casualty numbers are a lot higher than reported. In Nepal, authorities have also ordered the removal of online content that they deem to be misinformation about the floods.
What are the broader concerns about future disasters?
Upadhyay emphasised that while Nepal experiences earthquakes regularly, this flood exceeded anything previously recorded in scale.
In Nepal, we know that earthquakes can happen [but] this is worse than what has happened before,she said. The primary long-term concern centres on climate change and its effects on the Himalayan region.
The main concern was rising temperatures causing more cases of glaciers melting and collapsing.As global temperatures continue to rise, the risk of similar glacial collapses triggering catastrophic downstream flooding appears likely to increase, threatening both the hydropower infrastructure that Nepal depends on and the communities living downstream.
Nepal relies heavily on hydropower and has spent years developing the projects along its mountainous river systems. At least 11 projects either completed or under construction were damaged in the floods, authorities said.
The disaster has affected families across multiple countries. Survivors have recounted the moment their loved ones were swept away by torrents of mud, while a man from East Sussex flew to Nepal to search for his wife, parents, brother and uncle missing since the floods. An Aberdeen resident lost three family members in the disaster, while 35 Australians remain missing, including a Sydney family of four on a religious pilgrimage.
What happens next in the rescue operation?
Search and rescue operations are continuing with intensified focus on tunnel access and heavy machinery to clear mud from the hydropower sites. Nepalese Prime Minister Balendra Shah said rescue operations had been
intensified, noting the overall rescue toll. The next critical phase involves further recovery and extraction efforts, with authorities racing against time to reach workers believed trapped alive in the tunnels. Teams will continue drilling and using specialised equipment to penetrate the mud and debris blocking access to the Trishuli 3A and 3B installations, where the highest concentration of missing workers is located.
Key Facts
- A glacial collapse in the Himalayas triggered a 5.2 magnitude tremor and sent floodwaters travelling 62 miles downstream, killing at least 939 people with 3,925 unaccounted for across Nepal and Tibet
- More than 600 workers are believed trapped in mud-filled tunnels at hydropower projects, with more than 100 potentially alive; 279 have been rescued from the sites so far
- The rescue operation involves an international team of Chinese and Nepalese military personnel, with experts from India, Korea and Australia also involved
- Rescue teams are using explosives, drilling, and helicopter access to reach the Trishuli 3A and 3B sites, which remain buried under meters of mud
- Rising temperatures and glacial melting in the Himalayas pose an ongoing threat of similar catastrophic flooding events
