Chilime Hydropower Station Rescue Log

Contributors

I built this website and carried out the reconstruction independently. The contributors below are people I met or reached out to, directly or indirectly, along the way. Their contributions and connections to the effort are recorded below.

Prashidha Kharel, PhD

Debris-flow modelling

Contributed debris-flow modelling and simulation work to support the reconstruction, carrying out most of this work independently. View his air-pressure plots.

Read his simulation report (PDF, 38 pages) · 9 September 2026 · Preliminary sensitivity experiment.

Dr. Eng. Shanker Dhakal

Engineering research

Reviewed tunnel connections and elevation profiles, examined water-retention and drainage assumptions, and shared annotated research figures. View the shared analysis.

Bimal Khadka

Deputy manager, Chilime Hydropower Company Limited

Engineering archive

Supplied the engineering drawing archive and context for gaps in the surviving records.

Archive note & translation
“yo survey, design and construction suru gareko 30 barsa bhanda paila ho, tesaile section wise coordinate chainna jaha samma lagchha hai ani head office storema paani pasera dherai documentharu dubayera/ vijera bigreako pani thiyo”

English translation “The survey, design, and construction began more than 30 years ago. As far as I know, section-wise coordinates may not be available, and many documents in the head-office store were submerged or damaged when water entered.”

This explains why local geometry survives without enough coordinates for precise map placement.

Raghbendra Tiwari

CAD & drawing PDFs

Shared AutoCAD files and prepared readable engineering PDFs to support the reconstruction. Special thanks to Raghbendra for his help with these records.

Sujan Sagar Shrestha

Survey & chainage checks

Clarified survey references and tailrace chainage to help check the reconstruction.

Manoj Pandey

Initial footage labels

Provided the initial labels for the journey footage. These required substantial corrections, which I made for the reconstruction.

Shyam Sharan Nepal

Chilime engineer

Powerhouse levels

Provided handwritten powerhouse and access-tunnel elevation references.

Elevation values & source note
“Elevations of powerhouse area”

Handwritten powerhouse levels provided by Shyam Sharan Nepal and transcribed below in metres.

  1. Top of powerhouse Crown1404.000 m
  2. Top of EOT crane1399.200 m
  3. Top of upper bend1392.621 m
  4. Centre of runner and shaft1389.242 m
  5. Centre of MIV1386.910 m
  6. Bottom of MIV pit1384.710 m
  7. Bottom of pump pit1384.000 m
  8. Bottom of transformer hall Floor1394.250 m
  9. Bottom of access tunnel Corrected1398.26 m
  10. Top of access tunnel Corrected1404.730 m

Additional access-tunnel note At 120 m from the access-tunnel face: bottom 1390.67 m and top 1396.25 m. The source presents this as a distance from the face, not as a surveyed chainage such as Ch. 0+120.

These values do not provide Easting, Northing, bearing, a datum statement, or a longitudinal slope at each chainage. View the supplied handwritten note.

Bijaya Khadka

Acknowledgement

I encountered Bijaya in the course of the rescue mission.