KATHMANDU, June 21 (Xinhua) -- Seventeen including six Chinese workers trapped inside the tunnel of an under-construction hydropower project in Nepal were rescued alive on Friday morning, 11 hours after the incident, officials said here.
They were stuck inside after the dry landslide that occurred in the construction site at 8:30 p.m. local time on Thursday blocked the entrance of the 4.18-km-long tunnel of Rasuwagadhi Hydropower Project in Nepal-China bordering district Rasuwa, local administrator Arjun Bhandari told Xinhua by phone.
"We have rescued trapped 11 Nepali and six Chinese workers alive this morning. All of them are safe. It took 11 hours to complete the rescue operation," Bhandari said.
According to Bhandari, the workers were rescued safely because the landslide did not cause any damage to the tunnel where they were trapped.
"All the rescued laborers were brought to the construction site office of the hydropower project, some 200 meters down from the tunnel construction site," he said.
The local administration had deployed a team of 38 security personnel from the Nepal Army, Armed Police Force and Nepal Police to rescue the trapped workers.
The under-construction Rasuwagadhi Hydropower project is the largest among the four hydropower projects that are currently being developed by subsidiary companies of Chilime Hydropower Company, a private power developer in Nepal.
China International Water and Electric Corporation, the Chinese contractor, was hired for the civil work of the project. The hydropower project is expected to come into operation by February 2020.
