[Anchor]
The developer of a hydropower plant in Nepal hit by a severe flood predicted that due to the relatively distant location of the glacial lake, the impact would be minimal. However, with the unimaginable force of the flood, those expectations turned out to be wrong.
Reporter Choi Seung-hun has the details.
[Reporter]
This is the dam facility of the Upper Trishuli-1 hydroelectric power plant in the Rasuwa district of Nepal, filmed before the flood struck.
It is a core facility of the power plant that blocks the river water and channels it into the underground tunnel entrance, and it is estimated that about 90% of it was destroyed in this flood.
This is a disaster management plan drawn up in 2018 by Nepal Water & Energy Development Company, a local project corporation in which Korea South-East Power is the largest shareholder.
It cited floods caused by the collapse of glacial lakes as a major natural disaster in Nepal.
It also warned of the danger of floods crossing the border, noting that half of the Trishuli River basin is in China, making it difficult to monitor.
However, because the glacial lake was located 30 to 60 km away from the dam facility, it was expected that even when the flood was at its strongest, the impact would be significantly reduced by the time it reached the site.
At the same time, it was judged that it would not affect the monsoon flood scale reflected in the design.
This judgment was maintained even in the supplementary environmental impact assessment conducted by the same company in June of last year.
However, in July of last year, a flood occurred as water from a mountain lake formed by melting glaciers burst out all at once, damaging some facilities under construction.
Doosan Enerbility, the builder, reinforced landslide and flood warning systems upstream and conducted evacuation drills twice this year.
Korea South-East Power also visited Nepal several times starting in October of last year to inspect the site conditions.
However, with this flood rushing down so suddenly that there was no time to escape—raising the downstream river water level by up to 9 meters in just 30 minutes—the construction site suffered a major blow.
[Hwang Seok-hwan / Research Fellow, Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology: "It can be said that the glacial lake burst again, and as those waters traveled downstream, they triggered further landslides and debris flows, exceeding the measures that had been established to a certain extent."]
Opinions are emerging that a new double and triple warning system utilizing satellites and going beyond the concepts of existing manuals is necessary.
(Video Editing: Won Hyeong-hee, Design: Jang Seong-beom)
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