Base camp established in Batar, 70 km from site where 9 South Koreans went missing; fire department rescuers attempt helicopter deployment as overland team pushes deeper into search zone

South Korea's Korea Disaster Relief Team (KDRT), dispatched to support search and rescue operations following devastating floods in Nepal, arrives at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on Wednesday (local time). The 44-member team includes three officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — among them KDRT Chief Lee Kyu-ho, director general of the ministry's development cooperation bureau — four staff from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), and 37 personnel from the National Fire Agency. [Ministry of Foreign Affairs]
South Korea's Korea Disaster Relief Team (KDRT), dispatched to support search and rescue operations following devastating floods in Nepal, arrives at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on Wednesday (local time). The 44-member team includes three officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — among them KDRT Chief Lee Kyu-ho, director general of the ministry's development cooperation bureau — four staff from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), and 37 personnel from the National Fire Agency. [Ministry of Foreign Affairs]

South Korea's Korea Disaster Relief Team (KDRT), deployed to flood-stricken Nepal, moved Wednesday (local time) to its forward search base a day ahead of schedule to begin a full-scale search for missing persons.

KDRT Chief Lee Kyu-ho, director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' development cooperation bureau, told reporters at a hotel in Kathmandu that afternoon that the team had decided to relocate to Batar in the Nuwakot district of Bagmati Province in north-central Nepal on Wednesday.

Lee said the team had initially planned to conduct a reconnaissance of Batar before committing to it as a camp site, but decided to move directly on Wednesday after the government's joint rapid response team and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) determined the location was safe for overnight operations.

The KDRT had arrived at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu that morning. The original plan called for a reconnaissance of the base camp site in the afternoon, with a move to the accident scene scheduled for Thursday at the earliest.

Batar, which will serve as the KDRT's base camp, is about 70 kilometers from the site where nine South Koreans went missing at the construction site of the Upper Trishuli (UT)-1 hydropower plant.

The location is roughly two and a half hours by vehicle from Kathmandu and sits along the route to the Rasuwa district, which suffered severe damage in the floods.

Lee said 10 KDRT members had been sent ahead to Batar, with the rest of the team set to follow shortly.

The 10 fire department rescuers who departed first were scheduled to attempt a helicopter transfer from Batar to Ramche that day. The rapid response team's overland search unit had already pushed past Ramche and reached Dunche.

Ramche in the Rasuwa district is about 2 kilometers from the camp where the missing South Koreans had been staying, while Dunche is about 2 kilometers from the weir dam — the upper dam structure — where one of the missing workers had been stationed.

Jo Hyeon-mun, director of the National Fire Agency's Central 119 Rescue Headquarters and a member of the rapid response team, said the valleys in the Ramche area are extremely deep. He said team members had descended to within 50 meters of the valley floor before stopping.

"From that point it was a sheer cliff, so I told them to secure their safety before proceeding and to pull back if it became too dangerous," Jo said, adding that conditions at the scene were very difficult.

Search teams also received information suggesting that some of the missing South Koreans may have fled toward a mountain slope during the flood, and were expanding their search accordingly.

Fire department rescuers from the existing rapid response team were set to join the KDRT starting Wednesday to conduct search and rescue operations together.

Earlier, the Nepali government had asked South Korea to send an emergency relief team after catastrophic flooding struck the area near the border with China's Tibet Autonomous Region on Aug. 26, with damage quickly growing out of control.

The KDRT comprises 44 members in total: three Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials including Lee, four KOICA staff and 37 National Fire Agency personnel.

The floods have killed a combined 1,066 people and left 4,462 missing across Nepal and the adjacent Tibet Autonomous Region of China as of Wednesday.


mokiya@heraldcorp.com