China and Nepal have launched a joint on-site investigation to determine the causes of the massive flood in the Himalayan border region that left more than 8,000 people dead or missing last August.

Chinese media, including China Central Television (CCTV), reported that Chinese experts from the joint geological disaster emergency scientific investigation team departed from Chengdu, Sichuan Province, yesterday (local time October 4) and headed to Nepal.

The investigation team plans to spend about 20 days in Nepal examining how glacier and rock collapses led to large-scale debris flows and floods, while also assessing the risk of secondary disasters.

Wang Qingshan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Vishal Uprety, an academician of the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, are serving as co-chief scientists for the investigation. It involves some 50 researchers from more than 10 universities and research institutions, including China University of Geosciences, the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, Chengdu University of Technology, Nanjing University, and Sichuan University.

The investigation team plans to clarify the process of disaster occurrence and propagation through surveys connecting the disaster source in Nepal, affected areas in both countries, and downstream regions.

CCTV explained that because the disaster source is located in Nepal and the damage spread across the border—making China's Tibet a major affected area—it was difficult to grasp the full picture of the disaster through a single country's investigation, and that tracking the source locally in Nepal is a core step in understanding the entire process.

On August 26, glacier and rock collapses in the high Himalayan mountainous region along the north-central border of Nepal triggered a massive debris flow and flood, leaving more than 8,000 people dead or missing in China and Nepal.

Nine South Koreans, including six employees of Doosan Enerbility and three employees of Korea South-East Power working at the Upper Trishuli (UT)-1 hydroelectric power plant construction site in Nepal, also remain missing.

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)