KATHMANDU, Sept 4 — An army of experts in a WhatsApp group is guiding rescue workers scouring a Nepali valley after a huge flash flood more than a week ago as they desperately search for anyone who may be alive inside tunnels of devastated hydropower plants.
Engineers set up the messaging group before a wall of water, mud and rock crashed down the Trishuli valley in Nepal last Wednesday (August 26). It has since become a valuable tool alongside helicopters and heavy machinery in the race to find survivors.
The authorities hope some of the about 900 people reported missing from six hydropower plants — at least three of which were under construction — may have escaped the deluge because they worked in or fled into the tunnels.
In a first sign of success, two people were brought out alive from a tunnel linked to the Upper Trishuli 3A hydropower plant today, nine days after the disaster. One of them said more survivors could be in the tunnels.
Even finding entrances to some of the tunnels, which were designed to channel water or used to access hydropower facilities, is tough now after the flood deposited 2.2 million tonnes of mud and debris down the valley.
'Send me layout drawings'
"Can you send me Chilime layout drawings," a government official wrote on the engineers' WhatsApp group on Saturday (August 29), as rescue workers searched the buried remains of the Chilime hydropower plant high in the Himalayan valley close to the Chinese border.
Minutes later, a member of the group chat, which was expanded to include more experts to support the rescue effort, responded by sending drawings of the project's powerhouse, as well as details of access tunnels.
Reuters saw that exchange and others posted in the group, which has more than 500 members.
On Monday (August 31), Nepal's Independent Power Producers' Association said at least eight people could be trapped at Chilime, while an official at the Nepal Electricity Authority said 46 may be trapped at Rasuwagadhi hydropower plant, further south.
Reuters spoke to a dozen people, including government and military officials, engineers, survivors, and relatives of missing workers, who described efforts to search the tunnel networks of ruined hydropower plants, including how experts provided real-time guidance over WhatsApp.
"The flood has altered the terrain around the tunnels and changed their structure, while mud, rocks, soil and other debris had accumulated inside. This is not a normal closure of tunnels," Nepal Army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told Reuters.
At Chilime, Reuters images on Monday showed a large tunnel entrance with flood debris rising to the ceiling a short way inside.
Over 1,200 people were killed in last week's deluge caused by a glacier collapse. More than 4,000 people are still missing, including those who might be trapped inside tunnels.
Alongside Chilime, rescue workers are searching five other hydroelectric sites in the valley that were part of an expanding network of plants powering the nation and exporting the surplus. The flood wiped out 10 per cent of Nepal's generation capacity.
Seeking advice about tunnel networks via WhatsApp
At the Rasuwagadhi Hydropower Plant, rescue workers reached 250 metres into one tunnel before finding it blocked. But they have not given up the search.
"We are trying to reach there inside again to look for people," said Amshu Kiran Shahi, a board member of the Nepal Electricity Authority, adding that 46 people may have been trapped in a chamber, where they might have access to food and water.
A manager at the Nepal Electricity Authority, speaking on condition of anonymity, said rescue workers had also asked former plant employees for advice about the tunnel networks via the WhatsApp group. He said drawings posted on the group had been useful.
Shahi said rescue workers took almost six days to reach the tunnel at the Upper Trishuli 3A hydropower project because the entrance was buried. Before the survivors were pulled out today, rescue workers had been trying to supply oxygen via pipes into any cavities in case someone was trapped.
A Reuters photographer who flew to the site yesterday saw excavators trying to move huge boulders from the mouth of a tunnel and seeking to work their way deeper inside.
Jan Jiwan Thakur, a civil engineer at the Upper Trishuli 1 Plant, said a colleague warned him of the coming flood moments before it swept down the valley, giving him enough time to climb to higher ground with about 100 others from the facility.
"We just ran away towards the hillside and, after two to three minutes, when we looked down, everything was gone. The flood debris had entirely covered our office area," he said.
Dhan Bahadur Tamang described escaping through a tunnel when the flood hit, sending pipes and other equipment rushing inside. With knowledge of the tunnel system, he and several others found a way out, but he described seeing dead bodies during his subterranean journey to escape.
On the engineers' WhatsApp group, members shared names and mobile phone numbers of missing workers, asking government officials to relay them to telecom authorities in a bid to find their last recorded location.
Meanwhile, family members await news of missing loved ones, like Rajesh Shrestha, whose 30-year-old son, Rajish, is an environmental engineer at Upper Trishuli 1.
"Whenever I look outside, I imagine seeing him carrying a bag and coming home, just as he used to.
"I am surviving on the hope that he will return," said Shrestha, who runs a workshop making window grills.
