Two more people rescued in Nepal, relatives seek Tibet missing info

Rescuers in Nepal have pulled out a Chinese man and a local woman in separate operations, 10 days after devastating floods hit the country, as teams continued searching for thousands of missing people.

The man was rescued from a hydropower tunnel, according to a social media post by the Nepali prime minister’s office, bringing the total to three workers pulled alive from the Trishuli hydropower project.

Two Nepalese workers were rescued on Friday.

Nepal’s army said a joint rescue team of Nepalese military personnel and South Korean disaster experts rescued the man from a 225-metre tunnel and that he was undergoing a health assessment.

Images showed him being transported by helicopter, with an army medic checking on him during the flight.

A photo released by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV showed two rescuers carrying the man, called Lu Haitao, out of the tunnel.

CCTV shared audio of Lu talking to an officer, saying how he repeatedly shouted whenever he saw the rescue crews’ lights but they could not hear him.

“When they rescued me today, when they shone (the light) before my eyes, I couldn’t believe it,” he said.

Lu was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition, according to CCTV.

He was the third person so far to be pulled out alive from various tunnels since the August 26 flash flooding.

Rescue efforts have increasingly focused on 12 hydropower projects across Nepal, where about 900 workers are missing and roughly 500 are believed to be trapped in various tunnels, authorities said.

Specialised rescue teams from India, China, South Korea and the United States have been searching through debris, damaged structures and tunnels at the projects, hoping to find survivors.

In flood-hit Nuwakot town, a woman was rescued alive from a house, Nepal’s army spokesperson said on Saturday.

Officials said she was airlifted to Kathmandu for treatment.

Images released by Nepal’s army showed rescuers finding the woman covered in mud inside the damaged house.

They gave her bottled water before pulling her to safety, wrapped in a grey blanket.

At least 1300 people were killed in the August 26 floods, which were likely caused by a glacier collapse, and more than 5000 - including 36 Australians - remain missing, according to Nepal’s disaster management agency.

Across the Chinese border, 261 foreigners are still missing in Tibet.

Priyanka Choudhary, an Indian-born Finnish citizen returning from a Hindu pilgrimage in Tibet, was at the border crossing with Nepal when a mudslide hit.

“There is no information on the China side,” Choudhary’s brother Tarun said.

“We can’t go to China and talk to anyone, so I’m not able to understand how things are ... There is no update from China about what is happening at Ground Zero, what is the situation over there.”

In Tibet, at least 31 people have been confirmed dead and 531 are missing in all, state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday.

But several families of those missing allege an information blackout in China, worsening their agony.

“We are not getting anything from China, whether my sister is safe or alive or dead,” said Naresh Goyal, brother of Neetu Goyal Tiwari, a 51-year-old UK citizen.

According to Goyal, UK police visited his sister’s family home a few days ago to collect a DNA sample from her daughter to present it to Chinese authorities.

China’s foreign ministry has said it has been holding briefings for embassies representing 23 countries and on Monday it said its release of information about the floods was “transparent and timely”.

China has also said it is ready to work with other countries and agencies to identify the dead.

It has sent a group of DNA identification experts to Nepal.

In Nepal, authorities including the police regularly share information on those missing and dead on social media while search efforts have been accompanied by active DNA testing.

China called diplomats from countries with missing citizens reported in Nepal for a briefing last week in Beijing.

Diplomats who attended said China shared no details on how it planned to proceed with DNA identification of victims.

— with Reuters