[Anchor]

Two weeks have passed since nine South Korean nationals went missing in the devastating floods in Nepal. Our emergency relief team conducted their first foot search centering on mountainous areas, but faced major difficulties due to the rugged terrain, ultimately failing to yield any results.

Han Sung-hee reports.

[Reporter]

Steep rock faces and precarious, steep slopes that could collapse at any moment.

This is the area around the "Powerhouse" and the "Yellow Bridge," where it was suggested that the missing South Korean nationals might have sought shelter.

Yesterday (the 8th), our emergency relief team boarded two helicopters to attempt access to the site.

It is a terrain so notoriously treacherous that even the Nepalese military had previously permitted only drone deployment for safety reasons.

However, difficulties arose right from the start.

While one helicopter successfully landed at the Powerhouse, Nepalese military authorities blocked the ground search, citing safety hazards.

In the end, the relief team had to settle for deploying remote drones to survey the area for nearly two hours.

Another team that landed at a nearby military supply camp pushed ahead with a visual search along severed mountain trails, but ultimately failed to find any traces of the missing persons.

[Lee Gyu-ho / Head of the Korea Disaster Relief Team: We went up to the point where the road was washed out and closely examined the opposite slope. No unusual findings were observed (visually).]

The search at the Weir Dam tunnel, a major search point, was also a continuous battle for survival.

[Should we go deeper into the search or stop? Shall we push it with our feet?]

Amid zero visibility, massive rocks blocked the path, forcing rescuers to squeeze through narrow crevices between boulders.

Things reached a point where team members swallowed contaminated water or complained of severe dehydration and abdominal pain, leading the Nepalese military to declare an end to the search in the Weir Dam tunnel.

The decision was made based on the assessment that the likelihood of survival is extremely low and the risk of a secondary collapse is high.

The whereabouts of the nine missing South Korean workers remain unknown to date.

The official operational period for our relief team is set until the 11th, leaving only two days, but decisions regarding an extension of the dispatch period or the deployment of a follow-up team have not yet been made.

Families of the missing persons have scheduled a local press conference this morning.

(Video by Cho Chang-hyun and Yang Ji-hoon | Video Editing by Chae Cheol-ho)