On 26 August 2026, Sanjay Sah was working inside the Upper Trishuli 3A Hydropower Station in Nepal when disaster struck the Trishuli valley. A massive flow of ice, rock, mud and water swept through the area, damaging infrastructure and trapping workers associated with hydropower projects along the river. Sah, a 30-year-old mechanical foreman with the Nepal Electricity Authority, was working in the control-room area when the emergency began. As workers tried to escape, Sah faced a decision that would determine what happened to him over the next nine days. Instead of immediately running to safety, he stayed behind to help others leave. After his eventual rescue, he told a Nepal Army medical team that he considered it his responsibility to ensure that other workers escaped. By the time he tried to leave, however, his own route out had been cut off.
Another worker, mechanical supervisor Kabir Maharjan, was also trapped inside the underground structures of the project. What followed was an extraordinary nine-day struggle involving two men isolated beneath the disaster and rescue teams attempting to reach them from outside. Their survival attracted international attention, but the story is more significant than an account of two fortunate survivors. It raises questions about responsibility during emergencies, the limits of individual courage, the complexity of disaster rescue and the role of persistence when there is little evidence that the people being searched for are still alive.
The Decision to Stay Behind
Sah's own account after the rescue provides the clearest explanation for why he became trapped. Speaking to a Nepal Army medical team, he said that when the accident occurred, he told the others to run. Helping them consumed the time he might otherwise have used to escape. When he finally attempted to leave, it was too late. The circumstances are important because they distinguish his story from a simple case of being caught unexpectedly inside a tunnel. His professional role influenced his response to the emergency. As a foreman, Sah believed he had a responsibility toward the workers around him.
It is tempting to describe such a decision simply as heroism, but that would make the situation easier than it really was. Emergency decisions are made with incomplete information. Sah could not know exactly how severe the disaster would become or whether staying for additional minutes would leave him trapped. From outside the event, it is impossible to determine what the ideal decision would have been at every moment. What is documented is that Sah believed helping others was part of his responsibility and that this delayed his own escape. His experience therefore reveals something about leadership that is rarely visible during ordinary working conditions. Professional responsibility can appear abstract until an emergency forces a person to decide whether responsibility for others continues when one's own safety is threatened.
Nine Days Without the Outside World
Once the route was blocked, Sah and Maharjan entered a very different kind of emergency. They were no longer escaping the initial disaster; they were trying to remain alive long enough for someone to reach them. According to subsequent reporting, Sah spent his time inside reciting a mantra and waiting for rescue. He later told rescuers that he had been able to communicate through voices or noises with several people nearby, although the exact situation deeper within the tunnel remained uncertain. Maharjan, meanwhile, was also trapped within the underground structures after arriving at the project for maintenance work.
The psychological conditions of such survival are difficult to reconstruct from outside. The two men could not know how much rescuers understood about their location, how badly the entrances had been damaged or how long reaching them might take. Their families were living with the opposite uncertainty: they did not know whether the missing men were alive. That uncertainty is one of the least visible consequences of major disasters. When a person is missing rather than confirmed dead or safe, a family remains suspended between hope and grief. Sah's family in Saptari reportedly spent the days after his disappearance anxiously waiting for information. Maharjan's relatives experienced the same uncertainty until news finally arrived that he had been found.
Why the Rescue Took So Long
Outside the tunnel, the operation was not simply a matter of digging until rescuers reached the workers. The entrances and passages had been obstructed by enormous quantities of mud, rock and debris. Rescue teams had to determine how to enter without triggering further collapse or exposing additional personnel to unacceptable danger. Detailed reporting on the operation shows the technical complexity involved. Rescuers used maps of the hydropower facility, satellite information, excavators, pumps and controlled blasting to regain access to underground sections. Personnel from the Nepal Army, Armed Police Force, Nepal Police and technical teams participated in the search.
Progress had to balance two competing requirements. The possibility of survivors created urgency, because every additional hour could matter. At the same time, unstable ground and damaged underground structures meant that moving too quickly could injure or kill rescuers themselves. This is an important aspect of disaster response that is often hidden behind the final image of a survivor being carried out. Successful rescue depends not only on bravery but also on engineering knowledge, coordination, information and careful risk assessment.
The difficulties continued even near the end of the operation. Reporting after the rescue described rescuers confronting mud-clogged passages and finding alternative ways to clear sections of the route. Rain and instability also threatened those searching. The rescuers were therefore operating inside a disaster environment that had not stopped being dangerous merely because the initial flood had passed.
The Moment the Search Changed
On the morning of 4 September, the rescue operation entered a new stage. After days without direct confirmation that the missing workers were alive, rescuers heard a response from inside. One detailed ground report described a rescuer calling into the passage and receiving the Nepali response “Hunncha,” an acknowledgement roughly meaning “okay.” It was a very small amount of information, but after days of uncertainty it established the fact that someone inside could still respond.
The significance of that moment was practical rather than merely emotional. Until then, rescuers had been searching for people who might or might not still be alive. Hearing a human voice meant there was now direct evidence of survival. The operation intensified. Sah was reached, and rescuers subsequently located Maharjan. Both men were brought out alive on 4 September, nine days after the August 26 disaster, and were taken for medical treatment.
Reports differ over the precise distance at which the survivors were located inside the damaged underground system. Some accounts reported approximately 170 metres, while another detailed local report described them as being found about 40 metres inside a particular tunnel section. Because these measurements may refer to different points or routes within a complicated underground structure, the essential verified fact is simpler: both men were trapped inside the hydropower project's underground structures and were rescued alive after nine days.
Survival Was Not a “Miracle” Alone
News coverage understandably described the rescue as miraculous. Surviving underground for nine days after a catastrophic flood is extraordinary. Yet describing the outcome only as a miracle risks overlooking the conditions and work that made the rescue possible. Sah and Maharjan had to survive long enough to be reached, but survival alone could not remove the debris blocking access to them. Rescue teams had to locate possible routes, understand the project's underground layout, operate heavy machinery, remove water and mud, make decisions about blasting and continue entering an unstable environment.
The outcome therefore depended on two processes continuing at the same time. Inside, the trapped workers had to remain alive. Outside, rescuers had to continue searching even without knowing whether their efforts would end in rescue or recovery.
This distinction becomes more important as time passes after a disaster. In the first hours, hope of finding survivors is naturally high. After several days, uncertainty grows. Search teams must continue committing personnel and equipment despite the possibility that no living person will be found. At Trishuli 3A, the search continued. On the ninth day, that persistence was rewarded with a human response from underground.
Courage Has Limits
Survival stories are often transformed into lessons about determination: never give up, remain mentally strong, and human beings can survive almost anything if they possess sufficient willpower. The Trishuli case deserves a more careful interpretation. Mental endurance undoubtedly matters in prolonged emergencies. Sah himself described reciting a mantra while trapped. But determination alone does not determine survival. A trapped person also depends on physical factors such as access to air and water, the stability of the surrounding structure, injuries, temperature and whether a survivable space remains.
This distinction matters because otherwise survival can accidentally be presented as a test of character. When one person survives, and another does not, it would be deeply unfair to assume that the survivor possessed greater courage or a stronger desire to live. People caught in the same disaster can face completely different physical circumstances. One may have access to an air pocket or water while another does not. One passage may remain structurally intact while another collapses.
The survival of Sah and Maharjan should therefore be understood as the result of multiple conditions: their endurance, the spaces in which they were trapped, the possibility of sustaining themselves and the eventual success of the rescue operation. Their determination was important, but it operated within physical circumstances that no individual could completely control.
Responsibility in Both Directions
Sah's decision at the beginning and the rescuers' actions at the end create an unusual symmetry in the story. When the disaster began, Sah believed he had a responsibility toward other workers. He delayed his own escape while helping people leave. Later, when he was the one trapped, other people accepted responsibility for trying to bring him back.
This is one reason the story should not be reduced to a tale of individual heroism. Sah's survival ultimately depended on collective action. Engineers, machine operators, security personnel, medical teams and other rescue workers contributed to an operation that no single person could have completed. Major disasters expose the limits of the idea of the self-sufficient individual. In ordinary life, people can imagine themselves as largely responsible for their own safety and success. A collapsed tunnel makes that illusion difficult to maintain. The person underground needs someone outside to keep searching. The rescuer needs engineers to tell him where it may be safe to proceed. The engineers need accurate maps and information. The injured survivor needs medical care after being brought out. The family needs authorities to communicate what is known. Survival becomes a network of responsibilities rather than the achievement of one person.
A Rescue Within a Much Larger Disaster
There is also a danger in focusing too narrowly on the successful rescue. The August disaster caused catastrophic loss across Nepal, with large numbers of people killed, missing and displaced. Hydropower facilities along the Trishuli River were among the severely affected sites, and searches for missing workers continued even after Sah and Maharjan were found. Their rescue therefore cannot be treated as a happy ending to the wider disaster.
For their families, September 4 brought extraordinary relief. For many other families, uncertainty remained. Others had already received confirmation that relatives would not return. This context is necessary because survival stories can unintentionally distort our understanding of disasters. The exceptional survivor naturally receives attention because the outcome is unusual. But precisely because it is unusual, it should not become representative of what happened to everyone else. The Trishuli rescue was a rare success within a much larger tragedy. Recognising both realities allows the two men's survival to retain its significance without erasing the scale of the losses around them.
What the Nine Days Reveal
The story of Sanjay Sah and Kabir Maharjan can be read in several ways. It is a survival story, an example of a technically difficult rescue operation and an account of how workers inside critical infrastructure can suddenly become vulnerable to extreme natural hazards. But Sah's initial decision gives the case another dimension.
When the emergency began, he did not know that helping others would leave him underground for nine days. He acted according to what he understood his responsibility to be at that moment. Later, rescuers who did not know whether he was still alive continued working toward him. That sequence makes the story less about a single heroic individual and more about how responsibility moves between people during a crisis. Sah first tried to get others out. Then others tried to get him out. Neither side could guarantee success.
That is what makes the rescue worth remembering. It was not simply the story of a man who refused to give up. It was the story of people refusing, at different moments, to abandon one another. Nine days after the flood, the proof that their efforts had mattered came in the simplest possible form: a voice from underground. Someone was still alive. And someone outside was still listening.
References:
- Reuters, “Nepali foreman rescued from tunnel says he stayed behind to help others,” September 4, 2026.
- The Kathmandu Post, “How two Nepal hydropower workers survived nine days trapped underground,” September 4, 2026.
- The Kathmandu Post, “Rescued tunnel worker says he stayed behind to save others,” September 4, 2026.
- The Indian Express, “Buried under 170m of mud for 9 days: How two workers were rescued from Nepal's hydropower tunnel,” September 5, 2026.
- ThePrint, “‘Hunncha’ to ‘Hare Krishna’—how two words kept hope alive in Nepal's flooded tunnels,” September 5, 2026.