Nepal has reversed its refusal of international search-and-rescue teams in the Bhotekoshi flood zone, clearing India, China, Australia and South Korea to send specialists after what one official described as sustained diplomatic pressure from countries whose nationals are among the missing.
The turnaround came within hours of Kathmandu restating the opposite position. “The offer for help is natural. Our security agencies are doing the search and rescue operation. For now we don’t require such help,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lok Bahadur Chhetri said on Friday, in remarks reported by Ada Derana. A senior ministry official said Nepal had received both official and unofficial requests from countries and organisations wanting to deploy their own teams.
What changed
The Kathmandu Post reported that the government had already begun to move. Nepal said on Wednesday that its own rescuers could handle the operation and that foreign rescuers would not be allowed; the paper wrote that the decision “couldn’t hold even a day.”
“We received massive pressure from the international community to allow at least search-and-rescue teams and some experts because their citizens have also gone missing in the floods,” a senior government official told the Post.
Approval was granted through an inter-ministerial coordination committee acting on an assessment by the National Disaster Management Centre, and it is deliberately narrow. Foreign Minister Shisir Khanal said Nepal had “identified the three areas for the support and are seeking international assistance accordingly.” Requests from several other governments offering expert teams have not been taken up; officials from at least two embassies in Kathmandu said their offers went unanswered.
Tunnels and identification
The expert teams will work on reaching people trapped inside hydropower tunnels in Rasuwa and Nuwakot, where 14 projects — eight and six respectively — were hit by Wednesday’s flood.
Contact has not been established with 60 people, 25 staff and 35 workers, trapped in a tunnel at the Langtang Khola project. The Independent Power Producers’ Association of Nepal said 76 employees of Andritz Hydro at the under-construction 216 MW Upper Trishuli-1 project remain out of contact, along with 51 people at Rasuwagadhi.
The second area is forensic. Nepal’s laboratories have limited DNA testing capacity, and foreign specialists will help identify bodies. “We need to conduct DNA tests on a large number of samples,” Khanal said, so that remains can be handed to relatives “on time.”
The aid that was already flowing
Relief supplies were never the point of contention — the dispute was over foreign personnel. India sent 62 tonnes of material by Friday afternoon, up from 47.5 tonnes a day earlier, the Daily Mirror reported. The first 10-tonne consignment left on an Indian Air Force C-130J less than 12 hours after the flood.
Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said he had spoken to Khanal and that New Delhi had “given them a range of support offers. They are evaluating them.” India’s fourth tranche carried an 11-member team of doctors, paramedics and tunnel-rescue personnel. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said he had asked Nepal to let a Prompt Response Team work “seamlessly”; nine South Koreans are unaccounted for.
The United States has committed USD 500,000 and a disaster-response adviser, the United Kingdom GBP 5 million and emergency responders, and the World Bank has signalled emergency assistance of up to 25 billion Nepalese rupees, about USD 163.55 million. China has sent supplies and money. Sri Lanka committed USD 1 million and offered rescue and clearance help on Thursday; it is not among the four countries cleared to send personnel.
Where the toll stands
The figures in circulation on Friday reflect different moments in the day. The Daily Mirror, filing in the afternoon, gave 469 dead in Nepal and three in Tibet. The Kathmandu Post put the Nepali toll above 550 by Friday, with 977 missing including 517 foreigners from 31 countries. Nepal Police confirmed 547 deaths by Friday evening. The running toll and the gap between Nepal’s two reporting agencies are tracked separately, as is the barrier lake upstream.
