Recently, Balendra Shah (Balen) clarified about the efforts being made to rescue the citizens trapped in the tunnel due to flood and the technical difficulties encountered in it. He said that although there is expertise all over the world to save the tunnel when a normal landslide occurs, the disaster of completely blocking the tunnel with mud and mud along with flood is a special and different type of disaster.
Speaking about disaster risk reduction and management, Shah made it clear that no country in the world has the technology and great expertise that can be immediately adopted to work in a disaster of this nature. "These are not tunnels that have been affected or blocked by landslides, but tunnels that have been completely blocked by floods and mud. No one has the technology to do this yet," he said.
Regarding the public complaint that why more excavators were not used in the rescue, he pointed out that there are technical limitations. He said that only when the weather cooperates and the mud dries up a little, people can enter and operate machines. Shah informed that there is a technical constraint that more than one or two excavators cannot work inside a tunnel at a time and it is not possible to rescue by digging only from the outside.
He drew attention to the tendency of people to take the criticisms and complaints in social media and newspapers for granted, but without understanding the reality, they form opinions from the outside. "We don't know what the condition of the tunnel mouth is when we are sitting at home or watching from a distance. We often Google, ask AI or ask friends for feedback," said Shah. He also clarified that the rescuers were not disturbed by such responses.
He said that all the agencies including the Nepali Army, Armed Police and Nepal Police are continuously engaged in rescue operations at the risk of their lives. Instead of criticizing the security agencies and rescue workers who are working under difficult conditions, Shah urged all the citizens and agencies to encourage them.
