Nine days in pitch-black darkness. Zero food. No clean water. When catastrophic flash floods tore through the Trishuli valley in Nepal on August 26, slamming into the Upper Trishuli 3A Hydropower Station, most people assumed anyone trapped underground was gone.
They were wrong.
Against all mathematical and biological odds, two workers—mechanical foreman Sanjay Sah and project supervisor Kabir Maharjan—were pulled alive from 170 metres deep inside a blocked subterranean tunnel. Their extraction after more than 200 hours stands as one of the most astonishing endurance stories in recent disaster history. But how did they pull it off? And how did rescue teams find a tunnel entrance that had completely vanished under tons of mud and boulders?
The Race Against Time Inside the Control Room
The disaster didn't unfold quietly. When the wall of water and debris triggered by a devastating flash flood hit the Bhotekoshi and Trishuli river corridors, chaos erupted instantly.
Sanjay Sah was working inside the facility's control room when the first alarms sounded. Around 40 to 45 people were estimated to be working across the site. As a senior staff member, Sah faced a split-second choice: run for his own life or warn his colleagues.
He chose to warn them. Sah raced through the internal corridors, screaming at coworkers to flee toward safety. That selfless choice cost him his escape. By the time he turned back to save himself, the tunnel mouth had already choked with a massive slurry of mud, rock, and raging water.
Trapped 170 meters underground with a few other survivors scattered nearby, Sah leaned on sheer psychological resilience. To keep panic at bay in the absolute dark, he spent his days chanting mantras, including the Hare Krishna mahamantra. He later recounted shouting back and forth with three or four other people trapped in nearby pockets of the tunnel network.
When rescue crews finally broke through on a Friday, Sah’s very first question to the soldiers hauling him out into the daylight was deceptively simple: "What day is it?"
Locating a Disappeared Subterranean World
Finding Sah and Maharjan required an unprecedented engineering and search effort. The disaster didn't just flood the infrastructure; it reshaped the earth.
The primary challenge for the Nepal Army, Armed Police Force, and international experts was stark: the tunnel entrance no longer existed. Landslides and mudflows had completely erased surface landmarks. Tunnelling and disaster experts noted that standard rescue protocols completely break down when the geography itself is wiped out.
Teams had to rely on a painstaking triangulation process. They cross-referenced:
- Pre-disaster topographic blueprints
- Post-flood satellite photography
- Grainy helicopter reconnaissance footage
- Surviving surface markers like bent power poles
Once the approximate location of the portal was mapped, specialists began the grueling process of clawing through hardened mud. Armed Police Force personnel and army engineers crawled inches at a time through tight, unstable cavities. It took nearly six days just to locate the blocked tunnel system before they could even begin clearing internal debris.
Why Human Survival Persists in Air Pockets
Medical professionals and disaster response analysts often point out that human beings can survive weeks without food, but only days without water. So how did Sah and Maharjan defy this biological constraint for over a week?
The answer lies in the physics of underground engineering. Large hydropower tunnels contain complex geometry, varying elevations, and sealed service chambers. When flash floods rush into a closed conduit, they rarely fill every cubic inch uniformly. Instead, they compress air ahead of the water front, creating high-pressure air pockets.
Furthermore, moisture condensation on cold concrete walls and dripping seepage provide microscopic sources of hydration. It's a brutal environment—both men suffered from severe exhaustion, jaundice, and shock—but these structural air pockets are precisely what keep the window of survival open past the standard 72-hour mark.
The Bitter Reality Behind the Miracle
While the extraction of Sah and Maharjan provided a much-needed wave of national relief—coinciding auspiciously with the Janmashtami festival—the broader context remains staggering.
Independent power producer associations and local authorities reported that hundreds of workers remained missing across multiple hydropower projects along the Trishuli river basin following the glacier-collapse-triggered floods. Search parties recovered bodies deeper inside the tunnels of other compromised projects like the Rasuwa Langtang Khola site, proving that the line between survival and tragedy underground was measured in mere meters.
For families waiting outside army barracks in Kathmandu and Trishuli, the successful rescue of the two men offered an agonizing mix of closure and enduring hope. Kabir Maharjan’s wife, Hirashova, noted that her husband was initially non-responsive and heavily traumatized, barely recognizing family members before slowly beginning to speak.
Disaster management agencies continue to evaluate how climate-driven glacial anomalies are reshaping vulnerability in Himalayan energy infrastructure. Remote valleys that once seemed secure from sudden alpine floods now face escalating risks from upstream lake outbursts.
If you are tracking search updates or looking to support relief efforts for displaced families in the region, monitor official bulletins released directly by the Nepal Army or local district administration offices in Rasuwa, where coordinated recovery logistics remain active. Check verified humanitarian channels before donating to ensure resources reach families affected by the Trishuli basin disaster.
