Nepal's missing hydropower tunnel workers and the Rasuwagadhi search that found nobody inside

Safety & Advisories Rescuers reached the end of the Rasuwagadhi tunnel and found no one there, and it did not bring 93 workers home because most of them were never in… By Laxman Rawal · Aug 31, 2026 Read the full story

Rescuers went the whole length of the Rasuwagadhi tunnel and found nobody inside. A Nepali Army team reached the far end of the roughly 250-metre tunnel at the 111 MW Rasuwagadhi Hydropower Project on Monday 31 August, searched it with a drone, and came back… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

What the numbers actually say

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority put Nepal's toll at 903 dead and 4,247 missing on 31 August, with 10,451 people rescued and 592 foreign nationals among the missing. Uniformed personnel are in that list too, which tells you how… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

Project by project, and what has changed since

The Independent Power Producers' Association Nepal counted 934 unaccounted for across 11 projects on 29 August. Below is the picture the companies gave then, and what has happened at each site since. Every figure is provisional. Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

Where the rescue has actually reached

The flood comes down the Bhote Koshi before the day shift, taking headworks, quarters and access roads across Rasuwa and Nuwakot. Producers count 934 unaccounted for across 11 projects. Companies admit they cannot enter their own tunnels. Indian and Chinese… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

Why it took five days to get the right equipment

Nepal did not have what this rescue needed. Subas Chandra Baral, president of the Nepal Engineers' Association, said the country lacked the specialised skills, equipment and capacity required for large-scale tunnel rescue operations. Indian and Chinese teams… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

The people who are actually missing

It is worth being clear about who these workers are, because the coverage keeps sliding into megawatts. They are overwhelmingly Nepali and Indian labourers on rotation, living in site quarters for weeks at a stretch and wiring money home to villages a long… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

What this means for trekkers

What this means for you Rasuwa and Langtang are not a trekking destination right now, and we have paused our Langtang, Gosaikunda and Tamang Heritage departures rather than sell a route through an active recovery operation. Everest, Annapurna and Manaslu are… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

Have any tunnel workers been found alive?

Yes, but not recently. Roughly 300 people were brought out of the tunnels in the first days, including 254 at Upper Trishuli-1 and 85 at Upper Trishuli-3. Since the foreign teams began work on 30 August the tunnels opened have produced four bodies and no… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

Why did the Rasuwagadhi tunnel search find nobody?

Because only about three people were thought to have been inside it. The rest of the workforce was at the dam site, the underground powerhouse and the residential quarters when the flood struck before office hours. Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

How many hydropower workers are still missing?

933 on 31 August, across roughly a dozen damaged projects in Rasuwa and Nuwakot. The figure is provisional and has been revised repeatedly as headcounts are reconciled. Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

Is the rest of Nepal's trekking season affected?

Only Langtang and Rasuwa. The Everest and Annapurna regions are open and the autumn season is proceeding. See our note on what the lost generating capacity means for power supply if you are wondering about winter load-shedding. We will update this piece as… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

Reported from Nepal

Our coverage We are based in Pokhara and we are following this story. Figures are provisional and we date every one of them. Read the full report