In flood-ravaged Nepal valley, nothing is left standing

From the air, the section of Nepal's Trishuli River valley, where rescuers are trying to reach hundreds of workers trapped in hydroelectric ​power plants, emerges as an utterly desolate grey expanse.

Eight days ‌since, the ground has either turned hard like concrete or has become a slippery wet mass, and no signs of any human settlement are visible across wide swathes.

Arriving ​by helicopter, Reuters photographer Navesh Chitrakar saw excavators trying to move ​huge boulders from the mouth of a tunnel at the Upper ⁠Trishuli 3A hydropower plant. But the opening was so small that Nepali rescue ​workers could only attempt to enter the tunnel by crawling inside.

Authorities estimate that ​some 900 people are trapped inside six hydropower plants in the small Himalayan nation, where a glacier collapse last Wednesday sent a giant wave of mud, rock, and water ​barreling through mountain valleys, killing over 1,200 people.

Other workers at Upper Trishuli 3A ​were draining the water from inside the tunnel and preparing to conduct controlled blasts by ‌drilling ⁠into the hulking boulders so that the excavators could move in deeper.

Villages like Syabrubesi, once a gateway for Himalayan treks dotted with houses, showed up as a layer of grey-colored mud, with only a few buildings remaining.

There were ​no visible signs of ​life in this ⁠apocalyptic setting, Chitrakar said, and marks on the looming mountains on both sides of the Trishuli river suggested that ​the floodwaters may have climbed as much as 500 ​meters above ⁠normal levels.

At the Gyirong border gate, where surveillance footage showed people attempting to flee seconds before a mudslide engulfed the crossing between China and Nepal, some ⁠rescue workers ​could be seen in red uniforms along ​with some heavy machinery.