[Anchor]

While news of miraculous rescues has been reported, it is estimated that hundreds of people remain trapped inside tunnels. At the site, rescue workers are frantically searching for more survivors by digging through piles of dirt with their bare hands and crawling through narrow spaces.

This report is from Kim Minpyo.

[Reporter]

Rescue workers who created a miracle had to enter through an access route created at the upper part of the hydroelectric power plant tunnel and crawl to approach the trapped survivors.

Other power plant tunnels where entry through the original entrance was possible are also filled with piles of mud almost to the top and remain submerged in muddy water.

Therefore, rescue operations are being conducted by pre-surveying the interior with drones and searching for areas likely to have open spaces.

While some areas have enough space for rescuers to approach by boat, there are also places where they have to bend down and manually dig out the mud with shovels or their hands.

[China Dispatch Rescue Team: We quickly established a new plan. There was deep water behind the blocked section of the tunnel, so our members rowed and used buoys.]

A Nepali employee who survived the first day of the massive flood at a power plant tunnel that South Korea was constructing shared the grim situation.

[Dan Bahadur Tamang / Nepali Employee: I was able to keep my head above water by grabbing floating debris. I felt like I was going to die.]

Nepali authorities estimate that hundreds of people are still trapped across 12 hydroelectric power plant tunnels affected by this flood.

The hydroelectric power plants built along the Trishuli River are structured to draw water into underground tunnels to generate electricity at power facilities and then let the water flow downstream through connected tunnels. If people took shelter in rest facilities within these underground spaces or in air pockets inside the tunnels, additional survivors could emerge.

[Shishir Khanal / Nepali Foreign Minister: Air pockets may exist deep inside the tunnels, and looking at how the tunnels are designed, they slope upward.]

With the death and missing toll surpassing 6,300, Nepali authorities are focusing their rescue capabilities on the belief that there are more survivors inside the hydroelectric power plant tunnels.

(Video Editing: Lee Seung-yeol)