‘Miracle’ rescue nine days after devastating flood raises hope that more people could still be found alive.

Search teams have rescued two men from a hydropower tunnel buried by debris during the flash flood that devastated Nepal nine days ago.

The two workers were pulled alive from the main tunnel at the construction site of the Trishuli 3A plant early on Friday. The rescue raises hope of recovering more of the hundreds of people believed to remain trapped in hydropower tunnels.

The cascade, believed to have been triggered by the partial collapse of a glacier, killed more than 1,200 people and devastated entire communities, as water, rock and mud raced down Himalayan valleys.

A video released by Nepal’s Ministry of Energy showed cheering as a man emerged through a small muddy opening. He was helped to his feet by rescuers and carried on the backs of emergency workers, raising his hand as they took him towards a helicopter.

A second man covered in mud pressed his hands together in prayer as he was carried away on a stretcher.

The rescued men were identified as Sanjay Shah, 30, a mechanical foreman, and Kabir Maharjan, 45, a mechanical supervisor, by the minister of home affairs of Nepal, Sudan Gurung.

“I am so happy, my heart is lighter,” Maharjan’s brother Amir told the AFP news agency.

The Nepali Army said the two men were receiving medical treatment and would be taken to a hospital in Kathmandu, while “search and rescue operations are ongoing.”

The pair are the first to be rescued from hydropower stations or construction projects in Nepal. At least 557 workers are missing from the Trishuli 3A project. About 115 are believed to have been trapped in the main tunnel.

An army spokesperson reported that one of the survivors had told rescuers more people remain alive inside the tunnel.

Nepal’s Communication Minister Bikram Timilsina said officials remain hopeful that more workers will be rescued. “We are waiting for the rescue of more and more people,” he wrote on social media.

Rescuers have been desperately seeking survivors after the disaster on August 26 left more than 5,000 people missing in Nepal and Chinese-controlled Tibet.

Nepal has largely refused international help. However, Australia sent a team of drone specialists to the country on Friday.

The 15-member team, predominantly consisting of state emergency operatives, is joining the rescue operations on the request of Nepal’s government, authorities said. Thirty-six Australian citizens remain missing.

“We are still holding out hope that people might still be surviving in some sort of locations and hopefully this team can help locate any of those people,” Jeremy Fewtrell, the commissioner of Fire and Rescue New South Wales, told reporters at Sydney Airport.

At least 1,287 people have been confirmed to have been killed in the disaster in Nepal, and tens of thousands displaced. China has said 21 people were killed and 541 were missing on the Tibet side.