SEOUL, September 01 (AJP) - An emergency South Korean relief team was set to fly to Nepal late Tuesday to search for nine workers missing since a massive flash flood engulfed a Himalayan valley last week.
South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the deployment in a statement released Tuesday. Nepal had asked Seoul to send a team to support search and rescue work in the flood zone, and a public-private council approved the mission the same day under South Korea's overseas emergency relief law.
The nine missing workers, six from Doosan Enerbility and three from Korea South-East Power, were at the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower construction site in Rasuwa district when the flood hit on the morning of Aug. 26. Their offices and living quarters sat low in the valley and are believed to have been swept away.
Tuesday was the seventh day without contact.
Kathmandu had spent most of the past week turning down foreign search and rescue teams, telling governments its own army and police would handle the operation. The request to Seoul is the first sign of that position loosening.
Lee Kyu-ho, director general of the ministry's Development Cooperation Bureau, leads the team, whose members come from the ministry, the Korea International Cooperation Agency and the National Fire Agency. They were scheduled to leave Tuesday night on a KC-330 Cygnus military transport for about 10 days of work with Nepali authorities.
South Korea assembles the Korea Disaster Relief Team for large disasters abroad. Past Korea Disaster Relief Team (KDRT) missions include Türkiye after the 2023 earthquake, Laos after the 2018 dam collapse and Nepal after the 2015 earthquake.
Seoul had already pledged $1 million on Aug. 27. Nepal was accepting money and supplies through the Prime Minister's Relief Fund. Foreign personnel were another matter.
That caution dates to 2015. After the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people, 4,050 rescue workers from 34 countries arrived in a country whose airport, roads and bureaucracy could not absorb them, and within about 10 days Information Minister Minendra Rijal was asking them to go home.
A senior Nepali foreign ministry official told the Kathmandu Post last week that the influx and the competition among countries had caused significant coordination problems, and that the government weighed that experience this time.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Lok Bahadur Chhetri said on Aug. 28 that offers from India, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were understandable but unnecessary.
"Our security agencies are doing the search and rescue operation. For now we do not require such help," he told Reuters.
The policy left the South Korean effort stuck. A joint rapid response team of about 20 officials has been in Nepal since the middle of last week, and its six chartered helicopters sat grounded while Nepali authorities withheld clearance over fears of further flooding. On Aug. 29, South Korea was the only country granted a flight permit. The next day, nobody was.
On Monday the team stopped waiting. Nine National Fire Agency personnel left the embassy in Kathmandu at 7:20 a.m. and drove north through Nuwakot, reaching Dhunche about 11 hours later. Dhunche sits roughly 30 kilometers from the site. The Nepali army agreed to cooperate on the overland search.
Ten other Doosan Enerbility workers cut off elsewhere were pulled out earlier. Nine landed in South Korea on Monday afternoon. The site manager stayed behind.
Monsoon rain did not cause this flood. An avalanche of ice and rock came off a glacier near the Nepal-Tibet border, dammed the Lhende Khola River and then gave way. Jeffrey Kargel, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, calculated that the surge covered its first 22 kilometers at an average of 193 kilometers per hour. Downstream, the Trishuli River rose nine meters in half an hour.
Nepali disaster authorities counted at least 903 dead and 4,247 missing as of Monday. Nationals of more than 30 countries are among them, partly because the flood tore through a Hindu pilgrimage route and a trekking corridor. Foreign Minister Cho Hyun asked his Nepali counterpart, Sisir Khanal, for particular help in finding the nine during a call Monday afternoon, their second since the disaster.
At Upper Trishuli-1, 576 people are out of contact and about 300 of them are thought to be trapped inside the headrace tunnel, according to Mohan Kumar Dangi, who chairs Nepal's Independent Power Producers' Association. A Chinese tunnel rescue team pushed roughly 300 meters into that tunnel on Monday and recovered one body. The nationality has not been confirmed, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was checking through its embassy in Kathmandu.
AJP Takeaways
● Nepal's government asked Seoul to send a search and rescue team, reversing a week of refusing foreign personnel, and the 44-member Korea Disaster Relief Team was set to leave Tuesday night on a military transport.
● Nepali foreign ministry spokesperson Lok Bahadur Chhetri had told Reuters on Aug. 28 that offers from eight countries were unnecessary, a stance traced to 2015, when 4,050 rescue workers from 34 countries overwhelmed the country and Information Minister Minendra Rijal asked them to go home.
● Mohan Kumar Dangi of Nepal's Independent Power Producers' Association put 576 people out of contact at the Upper Trishuli-1 site, with about 300 believed trapped in the headrace tunnel where a Chinese rescue team recovered one unidentified body on Monday.
● Jeffrey Kargel of the Planetary Science Institute measured the surge at an average 193 kilometers per hour over its first 22 kilometers, and the U.S. Geological Survey revised its initial earthquake reading to conclude the seismic signal came from the landslide itself.
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