Posted on 08/31/2026 10:17:47 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Rescuers raced Monday to free hundreds of workers believed to be trapped in tunnels at hydropower sites that were buried in mud by catastrophic flooding on the Nepal-China border, as the death toll climbed and increasingly desperate families searched for missing loved ones.
“These tunnels are big enough to drive trucks through,” said Jakob Steiner, a geoscientist at the University of Graz in Austria based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. “And from what we understand, they have managed to get oxygen to some of those stuck inside and are trying to rescue them now. It’s a race for time, though, as people need food and water.”
In the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project, in the hard-hit Rasuwa district, at least 576 people were missing, Dangi said, adding that around 300 of them were believed to be trapped inside the project’s tunnel.
At the Trishuli-3 Hydropower Project, crews were working to descend about 15 meters (50 feet) into a tunnel in an effort to reach those believed trapped inside, according to Brig. Gen. Raja Ram Basnet, Nepal’s army spokesman.
Workers shoveling mud from a flood-ravaged power station in Dhading, Nepal, told The Associated Press that the stat
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
with all the videos I watched, I’m pretty sure thousands died
Horrible. I try not to think about the recovery and cleanup. Could take years?
Although it’s not mentioned in the article, I’m guessing that these workers are related to the world’s largest hydro power project being funded and built by China. The intent is to use the great altitude of the water to run it through tunnels containing generators, rather than having a huge reservoir behind a dam. No dam, no reservoir and therefore no danger like that posed by the Three Gorges Dam.
The political objective is to provide cheap power to the entire region thus giving China physical leverage should any of the countries using the power decide to do something China doesn’t like.
Thanks for the inside baseball on the project.
same. Very sad. A terrible disaster. RIP to those caught in it.
Wouldn’t be surprised if the death toll reaches 60 to 70 thousand unfortunately. Those people didnt have a chance.
Now let’s see this at the Three Gorges Dam.
This is going to be in the top ten worst flood disasters in recorded history by death toll and scale of destruction. It scoured down past bedrock in places nothing is left where 5+ story building stood.
1931 & 1887 had deaths in the millions in China though.
When I saw the first video I feared thousands
might have died - those waters were so high 😱
🛐🛐🙏🙏✝️✝️
Bodies are still being unearthed from time to time in the Galveston TX area after the great 1900 hurricaine made landfall in the dark with a 20 ft plus storm surge.
How did China have massive floods in 1931 and 1887 before man-made climate change happened?
There is good reason why some very scenic places are devoid of human settlement.
I can’t believe they built that (the 3 gorges dam) in a straight line
I wonder if construction activity was the cause of the avalanche.
“I can’t believe they built that (the 3 gorges dam) in a straight line”
My guess would be the viewpoint of the Communist Party affects everything they do, including the engineering. What I mean is, everything is either pared down to make it cheaper, or elaborately overdone, like the flower arrangements at state meetings. Which would be cheaper, a straight line or a long curve? Less material, lower engineering time.
Or, possibly, some party official drew it out on a map and he used a ruler. Then nobody would dare change it. When I worked at Honeywell, a DCAS rep with zero engineering sense sketched out a fixture like it was done on an Etch A Sketch. Management refused to let the mechanical engineers change it as they were afraid of this guy. It failed miserably. The design done on a different project that worked looked like a spider. Instead of fifty pounds of hogged aluminum, it was a few ounces of spring steel.
“I wonder if construction activity was the cause of the avalanche.”
According to the report I saw, a huge chunk of a glacier broke off and blocked a river. A significant amount of water built up behind the blockage. When the blockage broke days of ordinary flow came down the narrow valley in minutes.
Probably, in a Western culture the possibility would have been identified, and some monitoring would have been set up. For example, the flow of the river would have stopped, and someone would be detailed to go find out why. But this place is dirt poor and just isn’t set up to operate for maximum safety.
That was the mechanism of the vast Missoula Floods 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Huge ice dams formed enormous lakes. Dams failed and massive amounts of water flowed out. The process repeated many times until earth warmed up. You still have huge parts of Idaho and eastern Washington state with little topsoil.
I would bet the farm on that. China is hiding that they caused it.
ONE RUMOR WAS AN EARTHQUAKE
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.