“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...