[Anchor]
South Korea's second emergency relief team dispatched to respond to the massive flood damage in Nepal is set to begin operations. We connect with our correspondent reporting live from the field to ask a few questions.
Correspondent Choi Go-un, have specific details regarding the relief team's activities been finalized?
[Reporter]
Yoon Joo-seok, leader of the second overseas emergency relief team, arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal, today (September 12) in the morning and joined the team members who arrived a day earlier.
Consisting of a total of eight members, including officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, firefighters, the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), and medical personnel, the second relief team will carry out activities for a week.
The scale is significantly smaller compared to the first team, which consisted of 44 members.
Discussions are currently underway with the Nepali government, including the military, to ensure activities can resume at the disaster site as quickly as possible.
Given the immense scale of the damage—with initial recovery costs alone estimated at around 7 trillion won—the team will also conduct preliminary investigations to map out how the South Korean government can best contribute to the recovery efforts.
[Yoon Joo-seok / Leader of the 2nd Overseas Emergency Relief Team: (The goal of the second team's activities) will include search and rescue as well as reconstruction and recovery. We will closely communicate and cooperate with Nepali authorities to fulfill our given mission.]
[Anchor]
Families of the missing individuals are hoping for active search operations by the government relief team. Will the search be able to resume?
[Reporter]
Search efforts by private teams to locate the nine missing South Koreans are continuing through the weekend.
First, Korea South-East Power (KOSEP) is deploying around 80 personnel to trace the whereabouts of its three missing employees.
Starting today, they have also formed an inquiry search team.
Keeping in mind the possibility that the missing individuals may have evacuated to the mountains, locals familiar with the geography are visiting nearby villages to ask residents about their whereabouts.
Doosan Enerbility, where six employees are missing, is focusing on aerial searches by deploying one helicopter and four drone teams.
Unfortunately, neither company has yet found any traces of the missing persons.
While the families of the missing are urging active government-led searches, it is virtually impossible for the South Korean government to independently set up a search camp or enter the site without coordination with the Nepali government.
The emergency relief team stated that there are field constraints and that they will hold discussions with the Nepali government.
(Video reporting: Cho Chang-hyun, Yang Ji-hoon | Video editing: Ahn Yeo-jin | Footage provided by: Korea South-East Power)
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