Trapped for 9 days in dark tunnel, Nepal flood survivor refused to give up hope

KATHMANDU – When Sanjay Sah got trapped in a dark tunnel linked to a hydropower station after a devastating flood tore through the structure in Nepal, he was so scared of injuring his eyes on debris that he kept them closed for days. When a miracle rescue happened nine days later, he could barely open them.

“There was nothing for my eyes to see. Most of the time, I kept them closed. I was afraid that if I slipped or hit something by mistake, I could injure my eyes. So I kept them shut for long periods,” he told Reuters in an exclusive interview after being released from hospital on Sept 11.

“After doing that repeatedly, it became difficult even to open my eyes again.”

Since the collapse of a Himalayan glacier in late August caused devastation in the valleys below, at least 1,300 people have been confirmed dead and more than 5,300 are missing across Nepal and China’s Tibet region.

The 30-year-old, now recovering at his sister’s home in Kathmandu, was a mechanical foreman at the run-of-river Upper Trishuli 3A Hydropower Station, owned by the state-run Nepal Electricity Authority, for more than three years.

The multi-storey powerhouse he was stuck in for most of those nine days was built deep inside the mountainside.

Sah said he had no food, but drank flood water and seepage water from the mountain rock.

‘What would be the point of giving up quickly?’

When despair threatened to overwhelm him, he turned to the Hindu Maha Mantra, a chant central to Krishna devotion.

“Even if I had to die, I thought, what would be the point of giving up quickly? So I continued to chant God’s name and recite the Maha Mantra,” he recalled.

“The Maha Mantra gave me a different kind of feeling, almost a spiritual experience. I wasn’t afraid. Instead, I felt calm and relaxed.”

From the fifth floor of the six-floor powerhouse, there was an opening through which he could look down and shout, trying to find out if anyone else was alive. No one responded.

“At the beginning, I was very confident that a rescue would come. Even as the days passed, that confidence remained. I kept telling myself that I was not alone. I had a family, and they would be suffering greatly outside,” said Sah, father of a two-year-old girl and whose wife is 26 years old.

“Thinking about them gave me strength and raised my morale. Even if I was destined to die, I thought, what would be the point of giving up quickly in panic? So I kept reciting God’s name and praying.”

He said he had no idea he got rescued only on the 10th day.

“I had completely lost track of time and felt as if I had been living in another world,” he said. “My guess was that only two or three days had passed. I was shocked when I learnt it had actually been 10 days.”

He said that in the darkness, he would often bump into things, cut himself on debris or get scraped.

Broken tube lights and other objects had fallen around the area, and some of them pierced his feet.

The flood had buried the tunnel under layers of mud and debris, transforming it completely.

“Before the flood, I knew every part of it and could have gone deep inside without difficulty. But after the flood, the entire structure had been transformed,” he said.

“Equipment had been swept away, boxes were scattered everywhere, walls had collapsed and debris had created mounds and pits,” he added.

“My familiarity with the tunnel was no longer useful.”

Staying put

He initially tried to move around, but when he realised that he could instead get trapped in an even more difficult place, he stayed put.

“So I turned back and stayed where I believed it was safest,” he said. “That is where they eventually found me. Otherwise, I don’t know what might have happened to me.”

He said he would hear sounds from the outside in the final hours before rescue. “I knew they would come. I knew a rescue operation would be launched.

“I could hear some sounds, like the rumbling of drums. On the day I was rescued, and about 10 to 12 hours before that, once things had quietened down a bit, I started hearing noises from outside.

“I could hear the excavators working and the clanging of ladders. About 10 to 12 hours before the rescue, I could clearly hear people working. That gave me real hope.”

Kabir Maharjan, 45, was also trapped in the tunnel and was hospitalised at the same army facility with more severe injuries. Sah encountered him moments before the flood struck.

“We both had little time left and headed upwards instead of going down,” Sah said.

“We believed that even if a large flood came, it would not reach that high. We had reached the sixth floor when water began entering from below.

“First came air pressure, then the water itself. We got separated in the chaos. My mobile phone was swept away. I do not know where Kabir ended up.”

A devotee of Lord Krishna, Sah was rescued on the day when Hindus celebrated the birth of one of their biggest deities.

He said some of the people he had advised to evacuate from the tunnel and who had managed to get outside were swept away by the flood. “That is the saddest part of all.” REUTERS