Nepal Flood Damage Snowballs to 3.6 Trillion Won... Korean Relief Team Aids Survivors and Continues Search for Nine Missing People

[Financial News] The massive floods that struck Nepal late last month caused economic damage estimated at 3.6 trillion won. The second contingent of the Korean Disaster Relief Team (KDRT), deployed to the country, is continuing to support Nepal’s recovery while maintaining its search for nine missing Korean nationals.
According to Nepalese media and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on the 14th (local time), the Nepalese government recently provisionally estimated the damage from the floods at 3.6 trillion won. This figure includes 274.48 billion Nepalese rupees, or approximately 2.41 trillion won, in direct physical damage, as well as economic losses. More than 60% of the total damage involved infrastructure, while reconstruction costs alone are expected to reach 6.3 trillion won.
More than 1,400 people were killed and over 5,600 went missing in Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) as a result of the floods. The missing include nine Korean nationals: six employees of Doosan Enerbility and three employees of Korea South-East Power who had been working at a hydropower plant construction site.
Following the first KDRT contingent, the government deployed a second team to Nepal on the 11th. The team consists of personnel from MOFA, firefighters, the Korea International Cooperation Agency, and medical staff. Yoon Joo-seok, minister-counselor at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in the United States and head of the second KDRT relief team, met successively with officials from Korea South-East Power and Doosan on the 12th and 13th to hear about the companies’ search and rescue efforts.

The Nepalese government is currently limiting the search area for safety reasons, including the rugged mountainous terrain and the risk of further collapses, and is shifting its focus toward reconstruction and recovery. However, the second KDRT contingent is exploring various ways to continue search and rescue operations within the scope permitted by the Nepalese government and military. At the same time, the team is visiting shelters for displaced people and hospitals to deliver relief supplies while also assessing local medical needs.
Meanwhile, the first KDRT contingent, which handled the initial search, returned to Korea that morning with heavy hearts. Lee Kyu-ho, a MOFA director who led the first KDRT relief team, bowed his head and said, "We feel deeply saddened and sorry that we failed to find or rescue the people who lost contact with their families and whom their families desperately wanted to hear from."
MOFA has reorganized the joint government response team and dispatched personnel from the Korean National Police Agency and the National Forensic Service to the Nepal Central Forensic Science Laboratory. Using rapid DNA analyzers provided by the Korean government, they are helping Nepalese authorities identify the deceased.


[email protected] Park Ji-hyun Reporter