'Never seen floods like this in 10 years here,' says head of Korean community in Nepal

A massive flash flood triggered by a glacial collapse struck Nepal's Bagmati Province on Wednesday (local time), catching residents off guard and causing what appears to be record-level damage in the country's history.

Cha Seung-won, head of the Korean community in Nepal, told Yonhap in a phone call that day that floods near the border with China's Tibet had occurred before, but that he had never seen anything like this in his roughly 10 years living in the country. Cha added that about 650 Koreans had registered as overseas residents in Nepal, and that the Rasuwa district — where the flooding was most severe — had no registered Korean residents.

Concerns remain, however, that the toll on Koreans could grow. Damage to those who traveled to the affected area independently, rather than through a travel agency, has yet to be confirmed.

Moon Gwang-jin, a Korean resident of Kathmandu, said the missing-persons count currently reflects only those who registered through travel agencies. "The affected area draws a significant number of independent tourists who did not go through agencies, and in those cases there is no way to verify their status," he said.

Vivek Kumal, a Nepali worker, told Reuters the floodwaters came rushing down "as if there had been an earthquake," adding that he survived by catching onto a mango tree after being swept away by the current.

Rasuwa, where several villages were submerged in the disaster, was also hit by a similar flash flood in August last year. At the time, unusually high temperatures in the mountainous region caused a glacial lake in Tibet to overflow, killing nine people.

This time, the Bhote Koshi River burst its banks following a glacial collapse, inundating multiple villages in Rasuwa. Videos circulating on SNS showed people scrambling to flee as a massive torrent of muddy water and debris rushed down from higher elevations, sweeping away nearby homes.

Nepal's online news outlet Online Khabar, citing Infrastructure Minister Sunil Lamsal, estimated that infrastructure damage from the flood would amount to at least 200 billion Nepali rupees ($1.3 billion).