In a small alley in Gongabu bus park are a row of guest houses that usually accommodate Nepali migrant workers on their way to or from their home districts.

Today, the guest houses are all leaning on each other, with broken windows, cracks and gapoing holes where their walls used to be. On the road amidst piles of broken bricks and a strong stench of rotting bodies are abandoned flipflops, shards of glass, wires. At the end of the alley, a seven-story house has pancaked into two. Many of the bodies have been removed. But a man has just been found inside, he is still alive.

Twenty eight-year-old Rishi Khanal of Arghakhanchi was pulled out alive from the guest house on Tuesday night after almost 82 hours trapped underneath fallen floors. A French rescue team and the Armed Police Force (APF) worked relentlessly for more than ten hours on Tuesday to pull Khanal out safely. The French team had brought special detectors to find out if anyone was still alive, and Khanal was barely breathing, his leg trapped under a broken concrete beam.

Rishi Khanal of Arghakhanchi was pulled out alive from the guest house on Tuesday night after almost 82 hours. Photo: Gopen Rai

“We started drilling a hole through the concrete according to the French team’s instructions, then they brought special equipment to cut the beam his leg was stuck under, only to find out his other leg was also caught on something. After cutting the ply, we were finally able to rescue him alive,” said Narayan Thapa of APF.

After finding out that Khanal was still alive a medical team went in to supply him with water and oxygen through a special tube. Rescuers had initially said there was one other person alive underneath the rubble, but he died before they could reach him.

French rescuers have rescued 14 people so far.

Sahina Shrestha