Rescuers pull Chinese worker, Nepali woman from flood wreckage alive

Rescuers in Nepal have pulled a Chinese hydropower worker and a Nepali woman alive from the wreckage left by catastrophic flooding, as search teams continue combing the region for thousands of people still missing.

Lu Haitao was freed on Saturday from 225 metres inside a flooded tunnel at a hydropower plant in Rasuwa district, in the mountains north of the capital, Kathmandu.

Separately, 64-year-old Chandika Kumari Shrestha was dug out of her collapsed home in the neighbouring district of Nuwakot.

Both had been trapped since a glacier collapsed in the Himalayas on August 26, unleashing a torrent of water, rock and ice that swept through the valley.

Coming within hours of each other, the rescues are the third and fourth in days, and have renewed hope that more of those still unaccounted for in the region’s flooded tunnels could be found alive.

Lu was brought out by a joint team of Nepali soldiers and South Korean disaster specialists, and appeared stable though mildly hypothermic as he was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Kathmandu.

Speaking afterwards to Chinese state television, he described calling out to rescue crews whenever he glimpsed their torchlight in the tunnel, only to go unheard each time, until a beam finally swept over him. “I couldn’t believe it,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, reporting from Rasuwa district, said rain on Saturday had slowed the search there, though rescue teams were continuing to push ahead.