KB News Desk
South Korea’s rapid response team began operations in Nepal on Friday to help locate nine South Koreans missing after massive flooding hit a hydropower plant construction site, marking the start of Seoul’s on-site response.
The 11-member team, led by Lim Sang-woo, the Foreign Ministry’s representative for consular affairs and the protection of Koreans overseas, arrived in Kathmandu late Thursday and began coordinating with South Korean Embassy officials and Nepalese authorities.
The ministry said that the team’s priority is to gather information that could help determine the whereabouts of the nine missing workers, including their last known locations, and assess how search and rescue operations could be expanded.
The team, consisting of four Foreign Ministry officials, five National Fire Agency personnel and two police officers, is expected to move toward the flood-hit Rasuwa region after reviewing transportation and security conditions.
“We will do our utmost to ensure that swift and safe search and rescue operations are carried out for our nationals,” Lim told reporters before leaving South Korea on Thursday.
The nine missing South Koreans were working on the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project in Rasuwa, north of Kathmandu. They include three employees of Korea South-East Power and six from Doosan Enerbility.
Corporate response teams from the two companies have also been sent to Nepal to support efforts to locate their employees and assess conditions at the project site.
In another move Friday, Seoul appointed Park Jae-kyung, formerly South Korea’s ambassador to Zimbabwe, as its new ambassador to Nepal, filling a post that had been vacant for about a month. Park is expected to immediately join the government’s response to the flood disaster.
Seoul is also preparing for a possible larger-scale rescue and relief operation.
The government has decided to make an Air Force KC-330 Cygnus multipurpose tanker-transport aircraft available to transport rescue personnel, equipment and relief supplies to Nepal if needed.
The military has reviewed operating conditions at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport and is preparing the aircraft for deployment in coordination with the Foreign Ministry.
A larger Korea Disaster Relief Team, or KDRT, could also be dispatched depending on conditions on the ground and consultations with the Nepalese government.
Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Thursday that the rapid response team would effectively serve as an advance team to assess what additional personnel and equipment may be required.
Separately, nine of 10 Doosan Enerbility employees who had been stranded by the flooding were rescued by a Nepalese military helicopter Thursday and moved to a safe area. The remaining employee, the company’s site manager, was expected to be evacuated after helping oversee the evacuation of other workers.
President Lee Jae Myung has ordered the government to mobilize all available resources to locate the missing South Koreans and assist Nepal with its recovery efforts.
The disaster has meanwhile continued to worsen.
Nepalese authorities said Friday that 469 bodies had been recovered after the flash floods swept through Rasuwa and downstream districts, while hundreds remained missing.
