Two survivors miraculously rescued 10 days after devastating flash floods in Nepal

By Issy Ronald, CNN

(CNN) — Two more survivors from Nepal’s catastrophic flash floods were rescued on Saturday, offering a sliver of hope for a region reeling from the destruction wrought by a wave of water, ice and mud that washed away entire riverside communities 10 days ago.

A Chinese national, Lu Haitao, was pulled from the hydropower tunnels where hundreds of other workers remain missing while the other, 60-year-old Chandika Shrestha, was found downriver, on the upper floor of a four-story building in the devastated community of Betrawati.

So much time has passed since the floods that Shrestha’s family had started ceremonial last rites and begun preparing for her funeral, believing she had died, a local official said.

Thousands of families remain in this limbo across Nepal and China, not knowing if their loved ones are alive or dead. At least 1,362 people are known to have died in the disaster, authorities say.

About 900 of those missing are hydropower workers, who were working at facilities dotted along the Trishuli River when a huge chunk of ice sheared off a melting glacier, triggering a landslide and floods which buried entire communities in minutes.

Lu said he had been desperately trying to attract rescue workers’ attention for days, crying for help whenever he saw their lights.

“Whenever I saw the lights, I shouted, ‘Hey!’ Really loudly, really loudly,’ he told Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. “Maybe they didn’t hear me.

“When they came to rescue me today, even when their (lights) were shining right in front of me, I couldn’t believe it.”

Two other workers were rescued on Friday from a different hydropower plant after rescuers had worked around the clock in treacherous conditions in the hope of finding survivors.

But away from these miraculous rescues, the death toll continues to rise – two bodies were recovered from the same site where Lu was found – and other families are still enduring an agonizing wait for news of missing relatives.

Krishna Poudel added an image of his younger brother Ishwor, a 26-year-old hydropower worker, to a board with scores of other such posters for those missing eight days ago, but he still doesn’t know his brother’s fate.

Some who escaped from the tunnels told Poudel that his brother is still inside, he told Reuters. “They said they could hear the voices of about 200-300 people shouting from inside,” he said.

Rescue teams, helped by specialist crews from other countries including India and China, are concentrating their efforts on these hydropower stations. But authorities are also working to rescue those who found themselves cut off by the floods and to rebuild temporary bridges across the river, the Nepali Army said Saturday.

More than 7,500 homes across Nepal and around 55 kilometers (34 miles) of road were damaged in the floods, the Nepali Foreign Ministry said Saturday, leaving thousands in need of humanitarian assistance but with access to the area severely restricted.

Around 35,000 people are believed to need safe temporary accommodation, while 43,000 are feared to be at immediate risk of food insecurity, according to a United Nations report.

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CNN’s Kosh Raj Koirala, Bhadra Sharma, Charlotte Reck and Catherine Nicholls contributed reporting.