Nine days after being sealed inside a collapsed hydropower tunnel at the Upper Trishuli 3A project in Rasuwa district, Nepal, 30-year-old mechanical foreman Sanjay Shah emerged into daylight on Friday, September 4, — muddy, weak, but alive. Footage released by the country’s energy ministry captured the moment rescue workers pulled him through a narrow, mud-choked opening as onlookers broke into cheers. Unsteady on his feet, Shah was first supported by rescuers, then hoisted onto their backs and carried toward a waiting helicopter, lifting his arm in a weary gesture of triumph as he was taken away.
Shah was one of two Nepali hydropower workers pulled out alive from the Upper Trishuli 3A tunnel on Friday — the tenth day of an increasingly desperate search-and-rescue operation. A separate image showed the second survivor, his body coated in mud, hands folded together in prayer as he was carried out on a stretcher.
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The two men were among hundreds of workers who vanished after a catastrophic wall of mud, rock, and debris tore through the region on August 26, triggered by a massive glacial and rock collapse along the China-Nepal border. The disaster has so far claimed at least 1,280 lives, with more than 5,500 people still unaccounted for. At least a dozen hydropower sites were damaged or destroyed in the flooding, and search teams continue combing through the wreckage of the Trishuli 3A tunnel and several other locations, with officials describing the rescue as nothing short of extraordinary.
According to Nepal Army spokesperson Brigadier General Raja Ram Basnet, Shah was extracted from roughly 170 meters underground. Rather than fleeing when the alarm sounded, Shah stayed behind to help usher his coworkers to safety — a decision that ultimately cost him his own chance to escape before floodwaters surged in and sealed off every exit.
Speaking to NDTV from what officials describe as stable condition, Shah recalled the chaos of those first moments, saying the tunnel’s sheer length meant workers were scattered and cut off from one another almost immediately, leaving no way to know who was safe and who was trapped. He said he stayed in touch with a group of roughly six fellow workers throughout the ordeal, leaning on each other to endure days without food or water.
To survive psychologically, Shah said the group turned to devotion, repeating the mahamantra and praying for deliverance even as hope grew thin. The mahamantra — the sixteen-word Hare Krishna chant rooted in the Kali-Santarana Upanishad — is traditionally invoked by devotees seeking inner peace and spiritual clarity in moments of deep distress, and for Shah and his trapped colleagues, it became a lifeline of sorts, a rhythm to hold onto when there was little else certain in the darkness. He described the relief of finally surfacing after more than a week underground as almost indescribable — comparing it, in essence, to being granted a second chance at life.
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Specialists monitoring the operation believe the workers survived because a deep section of the 4.5-kilometer tunnel held a pocket of breathable air alongside trapped water, buying them enough time before rescuers could break through. Nepali crews, working alongside international disaster-response experts from India, China, and South Korea, had spent days battling dense, compacted debris blocking their path — and until Friday, no worker had been found alive.
Nepal’s Energy Minister, Biraj Bhakta Shrestha, framed the breakthrough as proof that the operation must continue undeterred, noting that hope remains alive as long as survivors might still be breathing. He confirmed that search efforts are ongoing across all affected tunnel sites and urged the public to keep supporting the mission through continued effort and prayer, stressing that hope has not been abandoned.
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The rescue offers a rare moment of relief in a disaster that has devastated communities across the Himalayan region, even as search teams brace for the difficult work still ahead. 
