KATHMANDU - Nepal’s disaster agency was cited on Sept. 7 as saying 599 foreign nationals remained missing as international rescue operations continued.

Nepal News reported on Sept. 7, citing the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority, that 13,399 people had been rescued and 599 foreign nationals remained unaccounted for.

Nepal’s Foreign Ministry had said a day earlier that more than 300 foreigners were among those rescued.

Chinese worker Lu Haitao, 49, was pulled from a 225-metre tunnel at the Upper Trishuli-1 Hydropower Project in Rasuwa district on Sept. 5, 10 days after the Aug. 26 floods. Reuters reported that he was evacuated to an army hospital with stable vital signs and mild hypothermia.

Lu had travelled to Nepal for work in February, his first job abroad, his sister told Chinese media, according to the Associated Press. He had previously worked as a farmer in Henan province and taken carpentry jobs in his spare time.

His rescue followed the recovery of two Nepali workers from the Upper Trishuli 3A tunnel on Sept. 4. A Nepali woman was also pulled alive from a flood-damaged house in Betrawati on Sept. 5. The Foreign Ministry said those four people were rescued alive over three days as searches continued at affected hydropower projects.

Tunnel-rescue teams from India, China and South Korea were working with the Nepali Army, while an 11-member Malaysian disaster-response team had arrived with nine high-capacity drones, according to the ministry’s Sept. 6 situation update.

Additional technical personnel and equipment were being deployed to Upper Trishuli 1, Upper Trishuli 3A and 3B, Chilime, Rasuwagadhi and Langtang.

South Korea initially sent an 11-member rapid-response team after nine of its nationals lost contact in Rasuwa, before expanding its involvement in the international search operation.

The Foreign Ministry’s emergency control room was also coordinating with diplomatic missions and families seeking information about missing foreign nationals as search and identification work continued.

AP reported that CCTV audio captured Lu recalling that he climbed to the highest point inside the tunnel and initially thought rescuers’ whistles were imaginary. When he finally saw their lights, he said: “When they shone before my eyes, I couldn’t believe it.”