[Anchor]

The South Korean government's emergency relief team attempted an aerial search by helicopter to find nine missing South Korean nationals, but had to pull back after just 30 minutes due to worsening weather conditions. The relief team will resume the helicopter search today (September 4).

Reporter Kang Min-u has the details.

[Reporter]

The South Korean government's overseas emergency relief team has set up a base camp in Battar, near the areas hit hard by devastating floods in Nepal.

On the afternoon of the 3rd local time, the team took to the air for a search operation using two helicopters provided by the Nepalese military.

Although it was their first helicopter search since establishing the base camp, worsening weather in the expected search zones reduced visibility to less than 1 meter, forcing them to turn back after only 30 minutes amid overlapping adverse conditions.

[Lee Gyu-ho / Head of Korea Disaster Relief Team: It rained heavily midway, causing turbulence, and the fog became too thick. So we had to turn back.]

The search for the missing South Koreans is being conducted in the Dunche and Ramche areas, located up to 30 kilometers in a straight line from the Battar base camp.

Authorities are searching for one person near a weir dam close to Dunche, and eight people around camp facilities including an office building in the Ramche area.

The day before yesterday, six firefighters from the emergency response team who arrived early in the field teamed up with two Nepalese soldiers to take a helicopter to the Dunche area, from which they entered the Ramche area—where the missing South Koreans are presumed to be—to conduct a ground search.

The relief team stated that they approached within about 50 meters of the main camp, which includes the office building where contact with the eight South Korean nationals was lost, but added that no unusual findings have been made yet.

The relief team plans to deploy helicopters and drones again today to search the expected locations of the missing persons and discuss long-term search plans with Nepalese authorities.

They also plan to consult with Nepalese authorities to analyze mobile phone signals from the missing South Koreans.

(Video footage by Seol Chi-hwan and Kang Si-u | Video editing by Cho Mu-hwan | Design by Seo Seung-hyun)