South Korean rescue team deploys drones in Nepal to locate missing workers
South Korea's second disaster relief team arrived in Kathmandu and began using drones to search for nine missing compatriots after the August floods.
An eight-person contingent of the Korea Disaster Relief Team (KDRT) reached Kathmandu on Friday and is employing unmanned aerial vehicles to aid the ongoing search for nine South Korean nationals missing after the catastrophic floods and landslides that struck Rasuwa District on Aug. 26. The missing include six employees of Doosan Enerbility Co. and three from Korea South-East Power Co., who were working on a hydropower project near the Nepal-Tibet border.
The drone operations are being conducted jointly with Nepali authorities, following a prior 44-member KDRT mission that spent ten days in Nepal, rescued a Chinese survivor, but could not locate the Koreans. The disaster has killed more than 1,400 people and left over 5,600 still missing across Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, according to foreign media. The South Korean foreign ministry confirmed the deployment and the continued search efforts. The mission underscores the increasing use of drone technology in international humanitarian responses.
Why it matters
It highlights South Korea's use of drones for overseas disaster relief amid a severe humanitarian crisis in Nepal.
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