[Edaily Marketin Reporter YunJi Kim ] Massive flooding in north-central Nepal has left 19 people dead and hundreds missing. Eight of the missing foreigners are reported to be South Koreans.

According to foreign media outlets, including Reuters, on the 26th (local time), massive flooding occurred around 9 a.m. in the Bagmati Province area of north-central Nepal. The Nepalese police and Tourism Board have confirmed that 19 people have died so far, and 384 travelers—including 291 foreigners and 93 Nepalese—are missing.

Among the missing foreigners are 105 Indians. Sunil Sharma, a spokesperson for the Nepal Tourism Board, explained that tourists from several other countries—including Australia, the Netherlands, the United States, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and South Africa—are also out of contact.

South Korean casualties have also been confirmed. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, eight employees from Korea South-East Power and Doosan Enerbility, who were working on the construction of a hydroelectric power plant in the Rasuwa area of Bagmati Province, are currently unaccounted for. In addition, 10 South Koreans employed by Doosan Enerbility are stranded in the area and awaiting rescue. The Nepalese government is conducting search and rescue operations in the affected areas using helicopters.

The Rasuwa region, where the flooding was most severe, is a Himalayan mountainous area located about 120 km north of the capital, Kathmandu. It is a border region adjacent to China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, and on that day, the Bote Koshi River overflowed its banks, causing successive damage to nearby villages, roads, and hydroelectric facilities.

This is not the first time the Rasuwa region has experienced large-scale flooding. Last August, high temperatures in the mountainous region caused a glacial lake in neighboring Tibet to overflow, triggering flash floods that killed nine people and damaged key infrastructure, including a bridge connecting China and Nepal.

Experts are leaning toward the possibility that this flood was also glacier-related. The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), headquartered in Kathmandu, analyzed that an avalanche originating from a glacier was likely the cause of this flash flood.

An ICIMOD expert explained that the Rende Kola River, a tributary of the Botekoshi River, reached its highest water level that day, noting, “This is the second flood in one year and two months.” The expert further assessed, “It is possible that ice and rocks that broke off from a glacier on the Nepalese side blocked the river and then collapsed, causing water to suddenly surge downstream.”

Meanwhile, glacial retreat due to climate change is also progressing rapidly in the Himalayan region. Himalayan glaciers, which serve as the primary water source for approximately 2 billion people in Asia, were thinning by an average of about 34 cm per year prior to 2000, but studies show that since 2000, they have been shrinking by about 73 cm per year—a rate more than twice as fast as before.