1st Korean search team sent to Nepal set to return home this week
A second unit will be dispatched, although how long it will be there and whether it will focus on rescue or reconstruction efforts is unknown.
A convoy of vehicles carrying equipment for South Korea's Disaster Relief Team (KDRT) travels from Battar, the team's base camp, toward Kathmandu on Sept. 9 as the search for nine South Koreans missing since Nepal's devastating flooding effectively nears its end, roughly two weeks after the disaster.
NEWS1
Korea's first disaster relief team sent to Nepal is preparing to return home this week, while the government works to dispatch a second team to continue searching for Korean nationals left unreachable by last month's flooding, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.
The Korea Disaster Relief Team (KDRT) will fly back to Korea as scheduled on Friday aboard a Korean Air Force KC-330 transport plane, the Foreign Ministry said in a press release.
The team was dispatched on Sept. 2 for what was originally planned as a 10-day mission.
The same aircraft, en route to Nepal to bring the team home, will first deliver relief supplies — including blankets, cold-weather clothing and tents — donated by Korean companies to nongovernmental organizations operating in the country, the ministry said.
"A second KDRT team is being prepared to continue search operations," the ministry said.
Further details, including its deployment timeline and whether its work will lean more toward search efforts or reconstruction support, are expected only after another meeting of the Public-Private Joint Emergency Relief Council, as required by law.
Separately, the government's joint rapid-response team and the Korean Embassy in Nepal will continue working closely with Nepalese authorities and carrying out other necessary work, including support for the families of Korean nationals who remain unreachable, the ministry added.
The relief effort follows a flash flood that struck Nepal's Rasuwa district on Aug. 26, hitting the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower plant construction site operated by Korea South-East Power and Doosan Enerbility. Nine Korean nationals working at the site remain unreachable in the disaster's immediate aftermath, prompting Seoul to dispatch a rapid-response team, pledge $1 million in humanitarian aid and later send the KDRT to assist in the search.
BY SEO JI-EUN [[email protected]]
