The Maoist raid on the Khimti I hydroelectric plant Tuesday night is the first-ever attack on a foreign joint-venture hydropower plant, and could damage an already-ravaged national economy.
The $140 million 63 MW installation in Dolakha is still functioning, but will have to be shut down in the next few days because of damage to the machine house controlling the intake. A group of up to 150 Maoists first destroyed the satellite link, but an army platoon stationed at the powerhouse 12 km downstream could not be warned of the attack.

A simultaneous attack by another Maoist group near the headworks destroyed one of the three generators of the 500 kW Jharke microhydro project. This plant was being used for rural electrification, and 8,000 households have been plunged into darkness. Elsewhere, Maoists have continued killing political party activists from the RPP, the UML and the Nepali Congress in Nuwakot, Dhading and Kavre, and extortion all over the country has reached unprecedented levels.