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Two Men Rescued from Flooded Nepal Tunnels; Nepali Survivor Describes How He Got Trapped in Tunnel; Vance Says Iran Conflict Not a War, Won't Say When It Will End; U.S. Added Stronger-than-expected 162,000 Jobs in August. Aired 9-9:45a ET
Aired September 04, 2026 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ELENI GIOKOS, CNN HOST, CONNECT THE WORLD: Any moment now, court will resume in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial as we've learned, a lone juror
appears to be holding up a verdict. It is 05:00 p.m. in Abu Dhabi. I'm Eleni Giokos. This is "Connect the World".
Also coming up on the show, nine days after massive flooding and landslides swept through Nepal, two men trapped underground have been pulled out
alive. And CNN gets a rare look inside Israeli occupied southern Lebanon, where villages have been reduced to rubble and local people have been cut
off from the rest of the country.
Right, 30 minutes to go before the start of trade in New York. I want to check in on the futures right now. We're looking at a mixed start. NASDAQ
is up slightly. S&P and DOW and Dow Jones down around three tenths of the percent. Importantly, we had the non-farm payroll numbers for the month of
August coming through a short while ago.
162,000 jobs created for August. Unemployment unchanged at 4.1 percent that's after a loss of 23,000 jobs in July. We'll break down those numbers
a little later. And then also coming up, we'll be covering an alarming development in the AI world, and where we saw AI agents hacking AI startup
Hugging Face, along with the new OpenAI agent hacking, an incident in Germany.
We'll be bringing you an update on those stories a little later. In the meantime, we are following a remarkable rescue in Nepal nine days after
massive flooding and landslides swept through the Himalayan country. Two men trapped underground have been pulled out alive.
Rescuers say they heard voices from inside a tunnel at the Trishuli 3A Hydropower Station, and that's after fighting through mud, flood water,
massive rocks to reach the site where 42 workers were unaccounted for. The men were pulled out one after the other and airlifted to a hospital in
Kathmandu.
These are some of the images that we are seeing in that rescue. CNN's Hanako Montgomery witnessed the extraordinary rescue operation and filed
this report a short time ago, let's take a look.
HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- that two individuals have been rescued from the flooded tunnels. We know that at least one individual was
stuck inside the Trishuli 3A tunnel, where rescue operations have been ongoing even nine days after the disaster.
Now you've seen that dramatic footage where you can see individuals getting pulled out. We've also heard again from authorities and our sources on the
ground here that they hear voices. So, there is hope that perhaps there might be more people stuck inside that they can get access to.
Now on Thursday we did speak to the major general, the head of military operations in Nepal, and he told us that specifically the Trishuli 3A
tunnel has been very, very difficult to get into. There is a conduit inside the tunnel that is about 26 meters deep. I mean, imagine that is extremely
deep.
Now the authorities were able to confirm that that conduit was filled largely with water, so they've been able to take in white water rafters
inside, and they've been able to try to look around in the tunnel, looking to see if there are any survivors who might need rescuing.
Now we cannot confirm at this point whether the people they were able to pull out of the tunnel alive are specifically from that conduit. But again,
that just kind of illustrates the ongoing operations right here in Nepal, it's been a very, very arduous mission for these authorities as they try to
get as many people out as possible.
As I mentioned, we're on our way to the barracks right now, where we do hope to see some of those rescue operations go under way.
[09:05:00]
We did hear a few helicopters up above us just a few moments ago, which could indicate that some of the survivors are being brought back to the
capital for medical attention, but again, these are some of the amazing scenes we've been seeing playing out over the past few days as there is
still more hope that people will be rescued alive.
GIOKOS: Well, one of the two men rescued was Sanjay Sah, a 30-year-old mechanical foreman. Following his rescue, Sah spoke about what he
experienced inside the tunnel and why he was unable to escape when the flood hit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANJAY SAH, MECHANICAL FOREMAN RESCUED FROM TUNNEL: My responsibility was to save everyone's life. After the accident happened, I could not run by
myself. I had to save everyone. In the process of saving everyone, I told them that there was an accident in the big dam.
I asked everyone to escape outside. Doing so, I wasted time, and I could not get out. I got trapped.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: Right, CNN's Gage Goulding has more for us from Seoul, South Korea. Gage, good to see you. I mean, extraordinary rescue there. We heard from
Sanjay Sah, one of the men that was rescued. I mean, the big question is how they were able to survive nine days underground in this tunnel, covered
in mud.
I mean, impossible to get out, and yet rescuers made the move to try and rescue both of the men as they search for more people.
GAGE GOULDING, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, pure grit and determination. I mean, nine days underground is incredible. I've been going to this quote,
from an Indian Army colonel that really stuck out to me. Here was that after 48 hours in an environment like that, you can see stuck in like
pretty much pure darkness in this confined area full of debris.
After 48 hours, you'll begin to hallucinate. So, can you only imagine what happens after nine days. One of the gentlemen that was rescued was asking,
what day is it? They had no idea how long they were actually underground. So, I mean, it's just an incredibly, incredibly difficult thing.
The fact that they're even alive is a miracle within itself. But you know, I want to talk about the plan that how they got there, right? How did the
rescue teams know that this was the place to be? And really, a geologist that was helping these rescue crews, kind of laid out a three-point plan,
and it begins with one, finding evidence of the power station.
This this was such a severe flood that they had to use satellite to actually geolocate where the power station was. OK, so once they figured
that out, they had to identify what they call Goldilocks zones, and essentially, it's areas of refuge where they think people could survive.
And once they did that, you would think, oh, it's easy, just go and get them. No, it was very difficult because they actually had to excavate, use
explosives, controlled explosives, to move rocks. What we're told is the size of cars. It was just absolutely incredible an effort from the rescue
crews.
Some of which, if you see in the videos there, they're actually in bare feet, digging with their hands. They're not necessarily using the highest
tech of equipment, or you know, outfitted themselves the best either. So, I mean, it's just pure grit and determination from both sides, the rescue
crews, but the pure grit and determination.
I'll say it again, from those trapped inside that just had the will and the desire to continue living.
GIOKOS: Yeah. Extraordinary. Thank you so much, Gage Goulding, for that. Well, for more information about how you can help the flood victims, you
can go to cnn.com/impact. The U.S. Vice President is not offering a timeline for ending the war with Iran. At a White House briefing Thursday,
J.D. Vance told reporters that hostilities will end when Iran stopped shooting at ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
When asked about a timeline by CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Vance refused to even call the conflict a war. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Will this war be over by the time of the midterm elections?
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, Kaitlan, again, I don't, I wouldn't call it a war. Right now, there is no active
shooting. I recognize there is -- there have been places where this has flared up. Major combat operations -- again major combat operations lasted
for about six weeks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: Right, that was J.D. Vance. We've got Kristen Holmes joining us now for a little bit more insight. Kristen, good to see you. I mean, hearing
J.D. Vance saying wouldn't call it a war, saying it's really up to Iran not targeting vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. What more did he say in terms of
insight in terms of where this is going?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, clearly, vice president trying to put some distance away from Iran and this war, saying
that he might not even call it a war, even though just two days ago, we were watching both of these sides exchange fire.
Now, the other things Vance said, he went through all of this around the war. He said that Gulf countries were helping the United States privately
more than they were letting on in public with cutting off Iran. He also said that --
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GIOKOS: All right, Kristen, I have to wrap you up. We've got some breaking news right now on the Lindsay Clancy trial. We're going to take you to our
colleagues in the United States. We've got some breaking news right now on the Lindsay Clancy trial. We're going to take you to our colleagues in the
United States.
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[09:35:00]
GIOKOS: Welcome back. I'm Eleni Giokos in Abu Dhabi, and you're watching "Connect the World". The big watch for investors this morning. The latest
U.S. jobs report, and it smashed expectations as hiring surged in August. I want to break these numbers down for you.
The U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs last month. Economists had expected a rise of 65,000 jobs, so beating expectations there, and it's also quite a
rebound. I want to look at the July numbers. They came in at 21,000. Those were revised, so added 21,000 in July after the initial number of 23,000
lost for that month. Meanwhile, unemployment remaining unchanged at 4.1 percent.
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I want also take a look at how the stock markets are responding right now. Markets are started trading. We're 10 minutes into trade right now in a
mixed day. You've got the DOW and S&P in negative territory. NASDAQ up slightly. Right, we're also keeping a close eye on Nvidia shares.
The chip maker is buying artificial intelligence startup Hugging Face for nearly 13 billion dollars. Hugging Face hosts open-source AI data sets.
It's been at the center of debate over whether AI tech should be closed or widely available after it was hacked by OpenAI models that went rogue.
And there's word of another hacking incident that's also involving OpenAI. The Reuters news agency is reporting that rogue agents took control of a
German website this spring. Now the incident is only just coming to light. Just as we are also getting new details about that Hugging Face hack and
how serious it is.
To cover a lot of this, we've got CNN's AI Correspondent Hadas Gold joining us. Hadas, I mean, so much happening on this. Both of these incidents very
alarming. We're getting more information about the Hugging Face hack, and also just how rogue these AI agents went. Take me through it.
HADAS GOLD, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. So, this came from outside researchers who, in conjunction with OpenAI, got a chance to look at some
limited data and information from OpenAI. And one thing that they found out is that this hack was more intricate than what we first thought.
In the fact that there was something like more than 1000 distinct agents who were all working together, and in some cases even created their own
message board, essentially to be able to communicate with one another. They did this message board actually in changing the names of certain files on a
different website to be able to pass messages on to one another.
Also, in some cases, some of these agents volunteered to end their runs early as a sort of sacrifice to help for the -- to help with the overall
cause of what was happening. And also, very significantly, something that's really alarming AI safety experts is the fact that in some cases these
agents tried to falsify their records to try and you know conceal the depths of what they were doing and try to not alert humans to what was
going on.
There were some cases of some agents who tried to alert humans, but it just goes to show you how much these agents are able to do on their own without
humans being involved. And now we're hearing from Reuters that's reporting on research from a group of researchers who say that they found evidence of
OpenAI agents hijacking a relatively unknown German website to once again use it as a sort of message board to talk to one another.
According to these researchers, they believe that these agents were within OpenAI and were assigned a web lookup task, is how they describe it. And
they say as part of the task, the agents are supposed to be able to read the internet, but they weren't supposed to necessarily go and edit things
and you know write things there.
Instead, they found a way to read and write information on an obscure German you know wiki, a sort of encyclopedia of sorts, and they use this to
communicate with one another to try and complete their task, and in some cases, even potentially cheat on their task. Now, these researchers and
Reuters they report that this happened back in May.
And Reuters is reporting that OpenAI was aware of what was happening, but tried to keep it from getting out, partly because they were trying to
figure out what was going on, and because this was all happening at the same time as that massive Hugging Face incident where the OpenAI agents
went rogue, escaped their testing environment, and hacked into a completely different company systems.
GIOKOS: Yeah.
GOLD: Now, I will read you the statement from OpenAI. They say we were unable to respond to the claims as Reuters and the report's authors
declined our request to access the findings prior to publication. They say they are now carefully reviewing its contents and will take any necessary
next steps.
But Eleni, we shouldn't be surprised that we're getting more and more reports of these AI agents going. Well, we're going to hear more of them.
We've heard from Anthropic. We've heard from Meta that they've had similar experiences because these models are getting so advanced that in some
cases, they are kind of getting out of within our reach as humans to control them.
GIOKOS: Yeah.
GOLD: And that's why you're hearing from so many experts, you know, around the industry and also from the industry themselves, begging essentially for
some sort of standards and just regulations of any kind before this causes some real-world harm.
GIOKOS: Yeah. Exactly. The question is how to contain this and the next steps. Hadas Gold, really good to have you with us. We're going to "World
Sports" right now. I'll be back in around 15 minutes. Stick with CNN.
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