South Korea's Second Disaster Relief Team to Deploy Drones in Nepal Search for Missing Koreans
South Korea's second disaster relief contingent in Nepal plans to use drones in the search for nine South Koreans missing since floods and landslides hit Rasuwa District on Aug. 26, the foreign ministry said.
The second contingent of the Korea Disaster Relief Team arrived in Kathmandu on Friday, according to the ministry. The eight-member group was seeking to employ drones for the rescue operation in coordination with Nepali authorities. It had been briefed on the ongoing search missions led by South Korean companies and had conducted on-site inspections for reconstruction and recovery efforts in flood-stricken Nepal.
The nine missing South Koreans are six employees of Doosan Enerbility Co. and three employees of Korea South-East Power Co. They went missing on Aug. 26, when massive floods and landslides hit Rasuwa District near the Nepal-Tibet border. The South Koreans were working at a hydropower plant construction site at the time.
The first KDRT contingent, made up of 44 members, returned home Saturday after a 10-day search-and-rescue mission. That team rescued one Chinese survivor but failed to locate the South Koreans still unaccounted for.
More than 1,400 people have been killed and over 5,600 remain missing in Nepal and China's Tibet Autonomous Region following the disaster, foreign media reports said.