Two pulled alive from Nepal tunnel

Rescuers pulled two workers alive from a tunnel linked to a hydropower station in Nepal on Friday, nine days after a wall of ice, rock and mud swept through the Trishuli River valley, killing at least 1,294 people and leaving more than 5,000 missing.

Officials and rescue workers believe the August 26 collapse of a glacier in the upper reaches of the river trapped at least 900 people in tunnels associated with six hydropower projects. The two men rescued from the Upper Trishuli 3A Hydropower Station were the first survivors recovered from those projects.

The workers, Kabir Maharjan and Sanjay Sah, were taken to an army hospital in Kathmandu, where their vital signs were reported to be stable. The army also

recovered a body from the

site and said two more bodies had been recovered from a tunnel at the Langtang Hydropower Station.

Footage released by Nepali authorities showed Maharjan being hoisted from a hole in the ground as onlookers cheered. Sah, a mechanical foreman, was carried out on a worker's back, his face covered in mud, before army doctors fitted him with an oxygen mask.