“I was chanting Hare Krishna,” said 30-year-old Sanjay Sah shortly after he was pulled to safety from a tunnel in Nepal on Friday, bringing an extraordinary ordeal to an end on a day when millions were celebrating Krishna Janmashtami.The coincidence was not lost on the rescuers: Sah, a foreman with the Nepal Electricity Authority, emerged alive from the Trishuli 3A hydropower project on the festival marking the birth of Lord Krishna, after spending nine days trapped inside the tunnel.Sah, from Saptari district in Madhesh province, was among two workers rescued alive from the tunnel after a devastating flash flood tore through the Trishuli River corridor in central Nepal on August 26.The other survivor, 45-year-old mechanical supervisor Kabir Maharjan, was airlifted to the Nepal Army Hospital in Chhauni, Kathmandu, for further treatment. Sah was taken to a hospital in Trishuli in Nuwakot district.Sah’s survival was intertwined with the moments when the disaster struck.He was working in the control room when the flood hit. Instead of immediately fleeing, he stayed behind because he felt responsible for the safety of the others.“I was working in the control room. My responsibility was to save everyone’s life,” he said.Sah said he urged others to run after the accident, but by the time they had escaped, it was too late for him to get out.Inside the tunnel, he clung to the possibility that others were nearby. He told security personnel that he was able to hear or communicate with three or four people in his vicinity by talking or making noises.Even after his rescue, Sah feared that others could still be trapped deeper inside the long tunnel, including near the powerhouse.“Not everyone may have been able to escape. The tunnel is very long,” he said, adding that the force of the floodwater could have carried people deeper inside.“I was chanting Hare Krishna mahamantra for the past nine days,” he said, briefly talking about the incident soon after he was taken out safely.His rescue came after Nepal’s security forces intensified their operation at the hydropower project using specialised equipment.Rescuers had earlier reported hearing voices from inside the tunnel and established communication with people believed to be trapped there, according to the Kathmandu Post.For Maharjan’s family, his emergence alive after nine days was nothing short of a new beginning.“He has returned with a second life. We are extremely happy,” his wife Hira Shobha was quoted as saying by the Kathmandu Post.The rescue offered a rare moment of hope amid one of Nepal’s worst recent disasters.According to the Independent Power Producers’ Association of Nepal, more than 600 people working at 11 hydropower projects remain missing.More than 1,250 people have died, and over 4,700 remain missing following the flash floods, according to the latest figures.The disaster on August 26 was triggered by an ice-rock avalanche near the Nepal-Tibet border, devastating towns and villages in northern and central Nepal and sweeping away homes, roads, bridges and infrastructure along the Trishuli River corridor.