Kathmandu, Sept. 4 -- For nine days, mechanical foreman Sanjay Sah and mechanical supervisor Kabir Maharjan were cut off from the outside world inside the underground structures of Nepal's Trishuli 3A hydropower project.

They emerged alive on Friday, after rescuers reached them following a desperate search that began when floodwaters swept through the project on August 26.

But the two men had ended up underground for very different reasons.

Sah, a 30-year-old employee of the Nepal Electricity Authority from Saptari district, was working his shift in the project's control room when the flood hit.

Maharjan, from Kirtipur in Kathmandu, had travelled to the project from the Kulekhani hydropower project for scheduled maintenance work. He w...