Workers feared trapped in Nepal tunnels

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0:57Hello to you. Welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. I'm Sean Lay, speaking to you from the BBC studios in London. You're very welcome to be with us. Coming up, can you tell which former world leaders are being portrayed in this new film? La France n 'a pas capitulé. Vous n 'êtes pas la France! Nous sommes la France. Nous? Nous. A clue. It's called resistance. And I'll be talking to the director later in this edition of News Out. Also coming up... Ignition and liftoff. Go Falcon Heavy and go Roman Space Telescope. In the past half hour, NASA has launched a new space telescope that will create an atlas of the universe and possibly help us understand the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.

1:47All of that come here in the next 50 or so minutes. But first, let's begin in Nepal, where four days after the collapse of a glacier triggered flash flooding and also across its border in Tibet, the number of people confirmed dead now stands at above 700. Two and a half thousand people remain unaccounted for in Nepal. In Tibet, which was annexed by China in the 1950s, 500 people are reported missing. Dr. Lobsang Yangso is Senior Environmental Researcher at the International Tibet Network, which is based in Dharamsala in northern India. She told the BBC that some stories from Tibet about Wednesday's disaster are reaching the outside world, despite strict censorship by China.

2:30There is frustration, there is sadness and heartbreaking to see that there is no information coming from Tibet. And as we know, there is a censorship by the Chinese government and also on the data suppression and also data manipulation by the Chinese government. So information that we get right now is only from the Chinese state media. But there are few incidents and stories that I could hear. And there was this one Tibetan in exile says that he has his family. and so two of his relatives have passed away. One was a Tibetan monk and in our Tibetan tradition, the monks, they go up on the mountain and then they do retreat for three months or three years and that monk, during his retreat break, he went down to the town to buy food for him and during that time, he was killed.

3:28And then I also have a story from a friend of mine, And her friend from Kirong, where she has an aunt, lives near the area as well. And she owns a guest house over there. And almost 14 paternal relatives of that girl have lost lives. And her aunt's building is swept away. And in that area, in village, there are only two or three families are left. And the rest 500 or 600 people are either missing or washed away. So there are a few stories that we could hear, but they are not reported because of the Chinese censorship. That's Lop Sanyang So, part of the Tibetan exile community in India. Ren Wei, a senior member of the regional communist party in Tibet, said the rescuers were trying their best to find people.

4:23We have mainly been conducting search and rescue from three directions. The first is from the east side of the port at Labi Village, where we opened a mountain trail and used rope descending methods to deploy 74 firefighters in the area. Search operations have been carried out continuously for two days in the core area. The second direction is from the north side of the port, where we sped up efforts to open a rescue channel along the national highway. Two helicopters from the People's Liberation Army Command have been flown into the area near the border gate to deliver rescue personnel and supplies and to transport the remains of the deceased.

5:07In Nepal, meanwhile, there's almost no communication with people in the valley affected because the flooding brought down telecommunication masts. Journalists and rescuers can only relay their stories once they're back in Kathmandu, the capital. David Fisher is head of the Nepal delegation from the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. He drove to the city of Baida on Saturday and spoke to NewsHour's James Kumarasamy afterwards. It's accessible by road for now, and that's, of course, very helpful to get there, but we're able to access only a very small part of the need. So even parts of the city have been cut off, and just across the river there are people in need.

5:48There is destruction, and both sides of the river are surrounded by a sort of quicksand mud and raging waters. So the only way to get across, even what you can see with your own eyes, is with the helicopters. There are many helicopters going back and forth, but they are dedicated to rescue, which is still going on. Our estimation, which is shared by some of our partners, is that there are almost 100 ,000 people that are likely to need urgent assistance. And how many of them might be beyond the reach of humanitarian organizations The great majority are beyond our reach.

6:47Instead of lakes, the system uses an extensive network of tunnels, in part relying on gravity to help generate the power from the water's onward rush. The debris carried by the force of the water in Wednesday's flood, however, blocked the upper entrance to many of the tunnels, sealing them from the outside world. Workers are trapped in this subterranean nightmare. Rescuers have to access tunnels from underneath and then attempt to climb up them, despite rock walls caked in mud. I've been speaking to Nepali journalist Badra Sharma, who's been to the scene and paints a grim picture of what he saw there.

7:25That area particularly was famous for having the most hydropower plants. But this time, you know, many of them are buried under the rubble or swept away by that massive plot. The local authorities have been struggling to manage the dead bodies because they are not identified and they have already started to decompose. Authorities, they have started mass burial. So the situation is quite depressing there. Yesterday they buried about 100 dead bodies and they are burying more bodies today. the burial of the bodies is presumably necessary if for no other region the risk of infection and it's understandable but it's obviously distressing for those still searching for their loved ones i think i'm right in saying they've been putting photographs up at the hospitals of some of the the bodies they have in the hope that people can identify them how difficult is it to identify somebody from these photos And hospitals are already filled with the bodies.

8:44Even the army personnel carrying those bodies are feeling difficult to transport from one place to other places. Some of the rescuers told me they have started to vomit because of a bad smell coming from decomposing bodies. So managing the bodies is one challenge. Other thing is that the government is failing to rescue the people trapped under the tunnel. This time, it's been quite difficult to identify the bodies because the issue is that some of the bodies are not even intact. Arm or leg or head, this sort of part of the body, the rescuers have been recovering. I went to the hospital as well as part of my reporting.

9:32I saw naked bodies there because their cloths were already wiped out during the flood. It's quite difficult. Can I ask you, Badra, about the tunnels and the efforts that are being made to try to rescue the workers who were in the hydropower stations when the flood hit? Why is it proving so difficult to get people out of these tunnels?

10:27the landslide. He had not even imagined that that massive flood would happen. So he was scared of that sound. He came out of his bed. He started to climb up. He went up, up, up about 200 meters up from the river bed or the place where he was. The water level was up to that level means 200 meters high and he was successful to survive. He told me that altogether 70 people, none of them were able to come out. He says he has no idea about other people. The flood was so massive there is even no any trace of that hydropower plant now. There are several other hydropower projects and many of them are under the tunnel.

11:19So rescuing the people from that point is a more challenging job. Nepalese rescuers, they have never experienced this kind of situation. Can I ask you finally, I know you've reported extensively over the years, you're currently working in collaboration with CNN, you've worked for the New York Times many years, you're very experienced. It's not unusual for you to encounter natural disasters in your part of the world. How difficult has this visit been for you? Being an experienced journalist, I have covered the 2015 earthquake and the deadly avalanches in Everest. I covered everything in Nepal in the last two decades or so.

12:03But this time, the situation is more depressing than 2015 At that time, they had the houses, they had the properties there, and then they were able to survive in their way. But this time, flood victims, they had no house. There is no road to get back to their area. And even if they go to their area, they cannot actually look at where their house used to be, where their land used to be. They have lost everything, you know. That's Badr Sharma, a journalist, talking to me from the Nepali capital, Kathmandu. Our live page is still running on the BBC News website. The latest video on there shows the rescue of a five-year-old girl, Manisha.

12:53She's now being cared for in a hospital in Kathmandu. There's also more detail on the rescue attempts in those blocked tunnels we heard about. The Home Minister says that the teams have pumped in air and will now start digging. and whilst we're broadcasting our production team is examining reports of another developing story this time of a ferry capsizing in the Mediterranean Sea of northern Cyprus. The news agency AFP is quoting a local official saying there have been some fatalities. We'll bring you more as we get it here on NewsHour from the BBC World Service.

13:54You're listening to NewsHour and still ahead on this programme. Well, I'll let the man tell you himself. Oh, coming up on the World Service, see how I sell cars in Coco, Florida, that's me. That's the opera singer using his voice to strike a chord with possible car buyers. More from him, Andrew Beers, shortly. Our headlines this hour. Heavy machinery has been deployed ahead of a rescue operation inside hydroelectric tunnels in Nepal, where more than 100 workers have been trapped by flooding since Wednesday. Icelanders have rejected government plans to begin talks with Brussels about possible negotiations on joining the European Union.

14:42And the opposition leader in Zambia has been arrested and charged with treason.

14:54This is Sean Lay with NewsHour, live from the BBC studios in London. In Iceland, a consultative referendum that could have restarted possible future membership talks with the European Union has been lost. That's according to RUV, the national broadcaster. This was the moment it was announced, and now a majority had voted to keep away.

15:22Delights from the No campaign there. The North Atlantic Island, with a population of fewer than half a million people, broke off membership talks with the EU more than a decade ago. Its current government had wanted Icelanders permission to reopen discussions, though there would have been a subsequent referendum if the government had reached any kind of agreement on possible terms for joining. In any event, Iceland already has access to the free market and its people can travel openly throughout EU member countries, although they have no say in the rules of the bloc. Let's talk now to Thorhilda Davidsdottir-Surbeck, who is vice chair of the pro-European Icelandic Youth Campaign Group.

16:01She's in the capital Reykjavik. Thorhilda, thanks very much for talking to us on the BBC World Service. You and I spoke on another station of the BBC on Friday when you were hopeful that maybe this referendum would be won by the yes side. What do you think went wrong? I mean, the results are, I mean, I just woke up to the no results. So it's obviously super unfortunate and a regrettable decision. I think I'm happy still that the voice was given to Icelanders and we were able to vote. At the same time, we can kind of look back at the campaigns and kind of question the democratic performance that they had.

16:49I mean, there were obviously a lot of interests, I think, self-interests that led to like millions of Icelandic coroners, hundreds of millions actually, being poured into this no campaign and ultimately swayed voters, especially young voters, at the last meters. It's very interesting, though, that kind of generationally people might have thought the young would be more interested in the European Union. Why do you think in Iceland that that hasn't been the case? What is going on? And also, why did the government even think this was the right time to go back after a decade in which it hasn't been talking to the EU about possibly joining?

17:32Yeah, I mean, about the young people, the earlier opinion polls, they showed actually that young people were more likely to vote yes. So it's around 60 percent yes. It was just at the last meters of the campaign where it was kind of swayed. I think it had a lot to do with social media campaigning, like heavy social media campaigning, as well as advertising campaigning. that just in some way appealed to young people to vote no. With your second question, I think it's just, I mean, Iceland is just in such a special place in the world. We're such a small island with no military. I mean, the whole world is changing around us.

18:21It's becoming more uncertain every day. So people are feeling more vulnerable? Yeah, I think so. And I think we definitely take it for granted. And I think we're going to be looking at this decision, at this no decision, at the end of the day, at some point in the future, whether it's in a couple of years or less or more. I think we're going to be looking at it and regretting our no decision. So you don't think this will close it down as an issue for a generation? I don't think it can. I mean, the European Union, it's such an important partner for Iceland. I mean, it's around 70 % of our trade.

18:58And I think if anything changes within the EEA agreement, I mean, I think it's still going strong. That's the European Economic Free Trade Area. Exactly. That's what you're part of. No, that's okay. Exactly. But if anything changes regarding that, for example, if Norway decides to join the European Union, I mean, they're already looking at it. then I mean I think Iceland will be in a position where they have basically no option but to join the European Union because Norway makes up about I think 95 % of the budget of the European or the EA agreement. Thorhilde, David's daughter, Sobek, we'll have to leave it there.

19:37Thanks very much for talking to us. That's Thorhilde who is part of the pro-European Icelandic youth campaign expressing her disappointment at the referendum result there where they've decided not to start talking again with the EU about possible future membership.

19:55Now news that will excite parents of children with curious minds the Never Fear, the third instalment of Catherine Rundle's book series which began with Impossible Creatures is just out this weekend and she's working on the screenplay for a film version. Earlier I asked Catherine Rundle, who simultaneously topped the book sale charts in both Britain and the United States, why fantasy has such wide appeal. I think that we have been turning to fantasy to think about large ideas and to go on large adventures for thousands of years. You can trace our desire to think about mythical creatures and impossible happenings all the way back to the Odyssey, to Beowulf, to the Fairy Queen, to the Mord Arthur, onto Tolkien and C.S.

20:41Lewis. I think there is something in it that captures our sense of the world as full of impossible things. Your childhood years was spent, I think, in Zimbabwe. Does that give you a different fantasy, a different magical tradition to draw on in addition to the British one? So I spent part of my childhood from about eight to 14 in Zimbabwe because my father worked in international development. And I think the main thing it gave me was a sense of the natural world as full of creatures that are so astonishing that if you were told they were mythical, you would find that easy to believe. A giraffe is as extraordinary as a griffin.

21:22And, you know, for some time, we were absolutely sure that griffins did exist and were a little bit unsure about giraffes. So there is a sense, I think, when you are lucky enough to be in a country where there is still wilderness and you have access to extraordinary natural beauty, that gives you a sense that our beauty is so exquisite as to be almost fantastical. The Never Fear is the third of what will be a five book sequence. Do you worry at all about sustaining the story? No, it has been the great creative joy of my life to work on these books. And I already know what will happen in book four and five.

22:03I have written part of the ending and I know that there will be, you know, there are berserkers who feel no fear, who have to learn to fear in order to learn to love. There is a princess who renounces her throne and discovers that she too has berserker blood. So I know where I'm going and it will be, for me, a great adventure to go there. I know you've talked very eloquently about your fears about the impact of AI and maybe some of the impact you're already seeing in classrooms when you go to read from your books to children and talk to them. Do you think literary imagination is under attack from technology?

22:38I do. I think that AI in particular, the large language model, have in the last few years changed the way that we think about thinking. They've changed the way we think about learning, having a fellowship at Oxford. A lot of my colleagues have said that they have seen a shift in the way that young people approach dense amounts of text, whether that's Plato or Shakespeare or history or even science, that it is harder for them than it was for students. And of course, this is not saying, oh, the young never do the reading. because, of course, every generation of young people, you know, escape doing all the work they're asked to do.

23:13I certainly did. But this is a change that hasn't happened over decades. This is a change that has happened over the last two to three years. The amount of energy that's devoted to scrolling rather than necessary to reading. And to the fact that AI can now create you a perfect summary of a book rather than, or in fact, I shouldn't say perfect, an imperfect summary of a book. but therefore the habit of searching a textbook for the piece of knowledge that you are seeking and thereby building the stamina, the peripheral information that you gain, all of that is being whittled away. Catherine Rundle.

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24:38The president of France has described the show as super positive for his country, soft power through cinema. But is TV tourism good for a city? For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

24:56You're listening to NewsHour. To Washington, D.C. now, where a pig called Synergy is making the situation a bit less bleak for people who are homeless around one of its major transport hubs. The BBC's Riley Farrell has been to meet her. I'm in Washington, D.C.'s Union Station, a historic travel hub just a jaunt from the U.S. Capitol. Under vaulted ceilings decorated with gold leaf, travelers bustle towards trains and buses. Locals and out-of-towners shuffle across the white granite floor. It's business as usual, except... Hi, this is Synergy. Synergy? Synergy? Yeah, she works with you at the Unpoused Grouping Association.

25:41Meet Synergy, a two-kilogram pig. Her toenails are painted red, and she's turning heads. But she offers more than entertainment. Synergy is training to become a therapy animal. She also works as a wellness ambassador for people experiencing homelessness. She's part of a crisis intervention non-profit called the H3 Project.

26:05Train stations like Union Station often attract people who are experiencing homelessness. They are public places that offer shelter from extreme weather and access to restrooms. It's also where Dr. Amy Angel spends most of her time. She works with the unhoused here at Union Station. We'll be walking along and like two people, you know, thug type will suddenly just like, they would never stop and talk. We'll suddenly, oh my God, is that big? Next to like two people who don't speak English, next to the homeless. Like a group that would never otherwise like entertain together, have a conversation, all the same thing.

26:38And that's what's amazing. She just breaks down those barriers. She founded the H3 Project. The name stands for Home, Health, and Happiness. And as we make our way through the station, Synergy is about to make a new friend. It's a pig. Have you seen her yet? I have never seen her. Hi, how are you? I mean, this is Synergy. For Amy, moments like that are exactly why Synergy is here. Synergy was first just a concept because I had heard how smart pigs are. So I was just looking for an idea that would help to have a different approach, to have something to open up that conversation. someone maybe that's resistant to case management, have that outside-of-the-box type of thing that might engage them with us.

27:23In the past year, H3 says it has provided 93 housing matches and 217 Narcan administrations for overdose reversal. What motivates me is those small things, those small wins. I mean, obviously, I want the big wins. I want the person getting employed. I want the person who finally was able to get his high school diploma at age 34. I want everyone in housing. I want those big wins. But I also have to take time and really celebrate those small wins, those small victories. And that's what really even Synergy brings in because those small victories of introducing Synergy to someone and they previously were unwilling to work with us to get their documents.