After days of waiting anxiously, Lu Haitao’s family could finally breathe a sigh of relief when the Chinese man was rescued from a tunnel in Nepal where devastating floods killed more than 1,300 people.
Rescuers carried out Lu from a 225m hydropower tunnel and evacuated him by helicopter on Saturday, 10 days after the floods.
He was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Lu recalled climbing to the highest point inside the tunnel and thinking the whistles he heard from the rescue crews were in his imagination, according to audio shared by CCTV.
He told a Chinese embassy staffer that the emergency personnel initially could not hear him when he shouted toward their lights.
Lu Hairong, Lu’s sister in China, told state media Red Star News that she received a call about the rescue before the news emerged. But she only found it believable after seeing him in a picture in the news.
Her 49-year-old brother, who is married with a son, was previously a farmer from Henan province.
He headed to Nepal for work with a fellow villager in February, his first time working overseas.
She told Cover News, another state media outlet, that Lu had not shared his exact working location and she could only watch the news sent by others in a mutual aid group for families of the missing, unable to eat or sleep well.
“It’s a stroke of sheer luck amid the misfortune,” she said of the rescue. — AP
