A whistle turned into a roar of water that trapped a dozen men in a Himalayan tunnel after a glacier burst in northern India but Rajesh Kumar lived to tell the tale.
Twenty-six people were confirmed dead but at least 170 others remained missing on Monday after the glacier broke off a mountainside, triggering a flash flood through a valley in Uttarakhand state.
On Sunday, floodwaters swamped a nearby hydroelectric power complex where Kumar and his colleagues were working 300 metres (nearly 1,000 feet) inside a tunnel.
Locals look on the damaged Dhauliganga hydropower project at Reni village in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, India [Rajat Gupta/EPA]“We didn’t think we were going to make it,” the 28-year-old told the AFP news agency from his hospital bed.