Two men rescued from tunnel in Nepal, nine days after flood

**Jeanette Jalil** (0:00)
This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Jeanette Jalil, and at 15 Hours GMT on Friday the 4th of September, these are our main stories. Rescuers in Nepal pull two people alive from a tunnel, nine days after the devastating flash floods. Two officials from the British Anti-Immigration Party Reform stand down after undercover journalists film them talking about foreign donations. The German car maker Volkswagen is cutting tens of thousands of jobs.
Also in this podcast, the story of the badly injured sea eagle chick nursed back to health by his devoted parents.

**Dave Sexton** (0:42)
For an eagle to get an injury and a broken wing, that's it normally, but he is a true survivor. And now here he is three years on and he's still with us.

**Jeanette Jalil** (0:55)
We start our podcast in Nepal.
That was a dramatic moment. Two workers were rescued from a hydropower tunnel in this Himalayan nation nine days after devastating flash floods that have killed more than 1300 people. The two men were lifted out of a muddy hole with one of them on a stretcher putting his hands together as if in prayer. The wife of one of those rescued, Kabir Maharajan, said it was a miracle.
He didn't recognize me. He only said things like, what happened to me? And where am I? And didn't say anything else. He's currently in intensive care. He asked for water so I gave him some. Now he has recognized me and nodded his head.

**Victoria Gill** (1:41)
He has an injury to his leg and hasn't been able to speak that much.

**Jeanette Jalil** (1:44)
His body has turned yellow because he wasn't getting enough oxygen. However, rescuers later found the body of a third person in the same tunnel. Around 40 other people are believed to be trapped there, and Nepali officials say they are hopeful of finding more of them alive. Across Nepal, thousands remain missing. In Tibet, which is tightly controlled by China, the official death toll remains low at just over 20, with around 500 missing.
Our Beijing correspondent, Stephen MacDonald, is monitoring developments, and he told me more about the rescue in Nepal.

**Stephen McDonnell** (2:19)
Imagine what a shot in the arm this is for rescue teams on the Nepal side of the border. We're into day 10 of this emergency.
I don't think many people expected that there would be any more survivors, but obviously they did, especially in these tunnels. And then to have pulled these two workers out alive, I mean, you know, I think it would give them all energy to charge on and keep going and actually look for others, because officials are saying that maybe there are as many as 40 workers in that particular part of the hydro power network, but they seem to be hopeful that they can find others later today. I mean, remarkably, to reach those workers who've come out today, they've been pumping air in and cameras, but it was just the old-fashioned call down the tunnel. Is anyone in there? And they hear these two voices come back. Yes, we are. And the Nepalese Army then not only reached these two trap workers but got them out alive. I mean, just absolutely incredible.

**Jeanette Jalil** (3:25)
And how about remote areas of Nepal, Stephen? Are rescuers now able to reach there? And what's the situation in Tibet where information is much harder to get?

**Stephen McDonnell** (3:36)
Certainly, on the Tibet side of the border, the rescue does seem to have changed into an effort much more to deal with living. So all of the information we're getting now from the People's Liberation Army is that they're testing water and food that the survivors are eating, they're putting up shelters, they're disinfecting areas. They're also looking after the psychological well-being of people who might have lost loved ones. Something else they've done is to pull together, I think around 800 different items of people's personal belongings. Now they're thinking that these belongings can be attached to the missing.
And on the Tibet side of the border, that's nearly 550 people. So items like torn bits of police uniforms, children's toys, personal belongings like bracelets and the like, and then they're attempting to match those with individuals. And I guess in the long run, it's the pretty grim task of determining who is or isn't coming back. And then to be able to say to those who are grieving already, yes, indeed, your family members are not coming back. They've also added, I should add, set up these two hotlines for people to call who have missing loved ones, one in English and one in Chinese. And so, that's for people to specifically think that they are missing somebody in the Tibetan part of China.