KATHMANDU, Nepal (AFP) — Two hydropower workers were pulled alive from a tunnel buried by debris in Nepal on Friday, a rare ray of hope on the 10th day of rescue efforts after catastrophic Himalayan flooding.

Rescuers cheered as one man was pulled through a muddy opening, a video released by the energy ministry showed.

He was helped to his feet by rescuers, and later carried on the backs of the emergency workers, raising his hand as they took him towards a helicopter.

A photograph showed the second man caked in mud, his hands pressed together in prayer, as rescuers carried him on a stretcher.

“Rescue operations are continuing in all the affected tunnels. Let everyone’s efforts and prayers continue. We have not lost hope,” Energy Minister Biraj Bhakta Shrestha said in a statement.

Rescuers called it a “miracle” after the 26 August glacial and mountain collapse on the China-Nepal border, that has killed at least 1,280 people and left more than 5,500 missing.

“I am so happy, my heart is lighter,” Amir Maharjan, the brother of rescued worker Kabir Maharjan, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The men, both Nepali, were named as Sanjay Shah, 30, a mechanical foreman, as well as Maharjan, 45, a mechanical supervisor, by Home Minister Sudan Gurung.

The prime minister’s office said that Shah was in a “stable condition,” and that Maharjan was in intensive care.

‘24/7 heartache’

Lakshmi Naini, who said Maharjan is her brother-in-law, waited outside a hospital in Kathmandu, where he was rushed to by helicopter.

“It’s a miracle! I am very happy,” she told AFP. “I heard he is alive through social media, and I could not believe it.”

“I have no words to express how I feel,” said another relative, Shyam Maharjan, 45.

The two were among hundreds of hydropower workers who had been missing since a wall of mud and debris swept through the region on 26 August after a vast glacial and rock collapse on a mountain on the China-Nepal border.

Searches were continuing at the Trishuli 3A tunnel where the two men were rescued, as well as multiple other sites, with at least 12 hydropower projects smashed by the floods.

The government had initially said it believed more than 100 workers could be alive inside multiple tunnels.

Nepali rescuers, aided by experts from India, China and South Korea, have continued searching for survivors feared trapped inside hydropower tunnels, but teams had repeatedly hit walls of hard-packed debris.

Until Friday, none of the tunnel workers had been confirmed alive.

Australian rescue expert Arnold Dix, who has been supporting the operation remotely, told AFP that the rescue efforts were “back in miracle country” after a “week of 24/7 heartache.”

Earlier Friday, Dix said teams at the Trishuli 3A hydropower project believed they had heard a faint response from inside the tunnel.

“They believe they received a faint response from inside saying, ‘hunchha’, yes or OK,” Dix, president of the International Tunnelling and Underground Space Association, told AFP, adding that he was en route to Nepal to join the rescue effort.

He said rescuers had called into the tunnel: “Don’t worry, we are rescuing you.”

Dix was a key adviser during the Himalayan rescue effort that successfully freed all 41 Indian workers trapped inside a collapsed under-construction road tunnel in 2023.

Dix said teams had dug through debris blocking the tunnel for 50 to 60 meters and had been hoping for a breakthrough at any moment.

Less than an hour later, rescuers pulled the two men to safety.