"It feels like living inside a time bomb, because we don't know when the next flood will hit."
Baek Sun-mi, a Korean resident of Nepal, voiced her fear of further flood damage in a telephone interview with the Seoul Economic Daily on the 28th. Baek said she had heard reports that a lake near the affected area was overflowing. "Himalayan glaciers could melt again, so it feels like walking on thin ice," she said.
Anxiety is mounting among Korean residents in Nepal as deaths and disappearances continue to climb after massive flooding in the Himalayan mountains near the Nepalese border. Baek, who lives in Kathmandu, first learned of the flooding through a video posted on social media. "It was shocking to see water engulf a village in an instant," she said. "Mounds of earth are still washing down in the areas hit by the flood."
Local residents agreed the scale of the flooding was unusual. Siri, a resident of Nepal, said many people had lost family members and relatives as well as their homes in the sudden flood. "Compared with floods over the past 10 to 20 years, this is the first time the damage has been this severe," she said with a sigh.
Samuel Dhakal, a Nepalese national staying in South Korea, is anxiously awaiting word on two acquaintances who worked as trekking guides. The two lost contact while leading a pilgrimage group heading through the Rasuwa district toward Mount Kailash in Tibet. "All I hear is that rescue teams and police are still searching, so I am waiting and holding on to hope," Samuel said. "There is nothing I can do from Korea, and it weighs on me."
Samuel, who worked as a professional trekking guide in the Himalayas for 15 years, said the flood swept gravel, sand and even trees into a narrow valley all at once. "The only way to escape is to climb, but the mountains are steep and the water moved so fast that there would not even have been time to get out of the way," he said.
The Korean community in Nepal has also been gripped by a somber mood after nine South Koreans working for Korea South-East Power and Doosan Enerbility lost contact at a hydroelectric plant construction site. "The Korean group chat, usually lively, went quiet after word spread that residents were missing," Baek said. "No one has much to say, and everyone is just waiting for news."
The Korean Association in Nepal is in continued contact with the Nepalese government to determine the whereabouts of the missing South Koreans. Eom Jin-yong, chairman of the Korean Chamber of Commerce in Nepal, said the water had receded considerably after the flood passed but that in some places the mud reached waist height. "Access to the affected areas is itself restricted, so it is difficult to assess conditions on the ground directly," he said.
The actual toll is expected to be far greater than what has been officially reported. Deaths in Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region combined have surpassed 472, with more than 1,500 missing, and the casualty count could rise further once unconfirmed damage is taken into account.
The difficulty is that rescue operations are proving far from straightforward. "The gorges are narrow and there are concerns about a second flood, so it is not easy for helicopters to fly in and out," Baek said. "I cannot even guess how many months recovery will take." The chamber chairman likewise said road access was difficult and rescue teams could not move easily. "Whether military or civilian helicopters, the urgent task is to mobilize every available means and rescue the people in the affected areas as soon as possible," he said.
