Rescuers pull Chinese worker, Nepali woman from flood wreckage alive

What the report says

Rescue teams in Nepal have pulled two more people alive from flood wreckage, renewing hopes that others may still survive after the devastating disaster that struck the Himalayan country in late August. According to Al Jazeera’s reporting, the survivors were a Chinese hydropower worker, Lu Haitao, who was freed from deep inside a flooded tunnel in Rasuwa district, and a 64-year-old Nepali woman, Chandika Kumari Shrestha, who was found in a collapsed home in nearby Nuwakot.

The article says both had been trapped since a glacier collapse on August 26 triggered torrents of water, rock and ice across river valleys north of Kathmandu. Lu was recovered by a joint Nepali and South Korean rescue team and later taken by helicopter to a hospital in the capital. Shrestha was given water at the scene before being airlifted for treatment. These rescues came shortly after two other Nepali tunnel workers were also found alive at a nearby hydropower site.

Al Jazeera reported that the disaster has killed at least 1,331 people in Nepal, with about 5,000 still missing, including foreign nationals. Officials have also reported deaths and missing people in Tibet. Search operations now involve teams from several countries, reflecting the scale of the emergency and the difficulty of reaching damaged tunnels and remote villages.

The rescues have become a rare source of optimism for authorities and families as rain and difficult terrain continue to hamper the search effort.