Ten days after a glacier collapse unleashed catastrophic flooding across northern Nepal, rescuers pulled two hydropower workers out alive from a buried tunnel on Friday — a rare moment of hope in a disaster that has now claimed more than 1,250 lives.

Sanjay Shah, 30, a mechanical foreman, and Kabir Maharjan, 45, a mechanical supervisor, were extracted from the Trishuli 3A hydropower project's tunnel in Nepal's Rasuwa district, according to NPR's reporting on the rescue. Shah was listed in stable condition; Maharjan was flown to a Kathmandu hospital in intensive care. Nepali officials said rescue teams had detected a faint response from inside the debris before finally breaking through to reach the men.

A Disaster Still Unfolding

The men had been trapped since August 26, when a glacier collapse triggered a rock-and-ice avalanche that slammed into the Trishuli River, devastating hydropower sites and villages along the China-Nepal border. At the Trishuli 3A project alone, 557 workers were reported missing, with roughly 115 believed still trapped inside the main tunnel. Across a dozen hydropower projects in the region, nearly 900 workers remain unaccounted for, with an estimated 500 believed trapped in various tunnels, according to Euronews' on-the-ground coverage.

The broader toll from the floods is staggering: more than 1,250 bodies have been recovered in Nepal, with over 5,000 people still listed as missing. Across the border on the Tibetan side, Chinese authorities have confirmed 21 deaths and 541 people missing.

WE ARE WAITING FOR THE RESCUE OF MORE AND MORE PEOPLE

Nepal's Communication Minister, Bikram Timilsina, said officials remain focused on the hundreds still unaccounted for. Army Brigadier General Raja Ram Basnet confirmed the details of Friday's rescue, while international rescue expert Arnold Dix, who has assisted with the search, described the moment his team first picked up a faint response from inside the collapsed tunnel before reaching the survivors.

Search-and-rescue crews, backed by the Nepali army and international teams, are continuing to dig through debris-choked tunnels across Rasuwa district, racing against time as hope of finding more survivors alive fades with each passing day. The scale of destruction — an estimated dozen hydropower sites damaged or destroyed — has also raised questions about the region's energy supply and the safety of hydropower construction in the fast-warming, glacier-heavy Himalayas.