[Anchor]
A major flood struck Nepal yesterday morning (August 26), leaving nine South Koreans unaccounted for and ten awaiting rescue. The death toll from those swept away by the rapid currents has reached at least 160 and continues to rise.
For our top story today, we turn to reporter Kim Gyu-ri.
[Reporter]
A massive wall of water rushes down a valley at high speed with a loud roar.
The fierce, rapid current immediately engulfs a hydroelectric power plant construction site, leaving workers no time to escape.
At around 9:00 a.m. local time yesterday, a massive landslide and flash flood occurred in the Himalayan border region between Gyirong County in China's Tibet Autonomous Region and the Rasuwa district in northern Nepal.
Nine South Korean employees working at the hydroelectric power plant construction site—affiliated with Korea South-East Power Co. and Doosan Enerbility—have lost contact.
Another ten South Koreans who were briefly isolated by the floods have reportedly evacuated to safety.
The Nepal Police Headquarters stated that as of 11:00 p.m. local time yesterday, 157 bodies had been recovered in Nepal alone.
Chinese state media earlier reported that three people died in the Tibet region, bringing the combined death toll from both countries to at least 160.
Nepali authorities reported that 484 people are missing, including 391 foreigners and 93 Nepalis. Given the wide disaster zone and communication outages complicating efforts to assess the scale of the missing, the possibility that the figures will rise further cannot be ruled out.
The Nepali Minister for Foreign Affairs reported to the Nepalese parliament on the preliminary investigation results, stating that a landslide triggered by an earthquake occurred at 8:37 a.m. local time yesterday, causing the flash flood.
However, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) stated through further analysis that the earthquake initially cited as the cause of the landslide and flood was actually determined to be ground shaking generated during a glacier collapse.
A similar flash flood occurred in the affected area in August of last year.
Water from melting glaciers in adjacent Tibet, driven by global warming, filled up lakes before instantaneously pouring downstream.
At that time, nine people died and infrastructure, including bridges connecting Nepal and China, was destroyed.
(Video Editing: Kim Byung-jik)
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