Korea Disaster Relief Team Begins Return After Suspending Search... Families Plead, "Please Don't Give Up"

[Financial News] The Korea Disaster Relief Team (KDRT), which was dispatched to Nepal on the 2nd to search for people missing amid the massive floods, has suspended its search operations and begun preparations to return home. The KDRT had originally arrived in Nepal for a 10-day search operation.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and other sources on the 9th, the KDRT is preparing to return from Nepal in accordance with a decision by the Public-Private Joint Overseas Emergency Relief Council. The KDRT did not conduct search activities that morning, taking into account Nepal's transition toward ending its search and rescue operations.
According to the original plan, the KDRT's activities were scheduled to continue through the 11th, but no discussions on extending the deployment have taken place so far, it was reported.
Instead, the government is reportedly discussing a second deployment after the first relief team returns. However, it is not yet known whether the purpose of the second deployment will focus on reconstruction rather than search operations, or when it will take place. The government is consulting with the Nepalese authorities on plans for future activities.
The KDRT, which arrived on the 2nd, set up a base camp in the Batar area of Bagmati Province in north-central Nepal, the site of the massive floods, and has been conducting search operations at locations including the construction site of the Upper Trishuli (UT)-1 Hydroelectric Power Plant, where the nine missing South Koreans worked.
However, the families of the three employees of Korea South Power who went missing in the Nepal floods urged the government to stop the unilateral termination of the search and the early withdrawal.
Three family members of those missing from Korea South Power expressed their dissatisfaction with the end of the search after issuing a statement in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, on the 9th under the name "Families of Koreans from Korea South Power Who Lost Contact in the Nepal Floods."

[email protected] Kim Kyung-soo Reporter