KATHMANDU, Aug 28 - Nepal does not need foreign assistance for search-and-rescue operations following the devastating flash flood that swept through several towns, its Foreign Ministry said today, despite offers of help from several countries with nationals missing in the disaster.
The flood tore through areas including Rasuwa district near the Chinese border, levelling entire towns, damaging hydropower projects, and killing close to 500 people. Hundreds of foreign nationals are still missing, including from South Korea, which said it has already sent a response team to Nepal and will also dispatch a disaster relief team.
But Nepal's Foreign Ministry said that it was managing the rescue efforts.
"The offer for help is natural. Our security agencies are doing the search and rescue operation. For now, we do not require such help," said its spokesman Lok Bahadur Chhetri, without providing further details.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Nepal had indicated it was not yet planning to accept foreign rescue teams.
"South Korea will keep negotiating with Nepal over the matter," it said.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said that Seoul has pledged US$1 million (RM4.03 million) in humanitarian assistance through international organisations.
On Wednesday (August 26), South Korea's Foreign Ministry confirmed that nine of its citizens working in a hydropower plant were missing and 10 were stranded.
The Kathmandu Post reported that India, China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh had asked the government to allow their search-and-rescue teams to assist in the operation.
Nepal's former ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva Dinesh Bhattarai said the government's reluctance to accept foreign search-and-rescue teams may be linked to the sensitivity of flood-hit Rasuwa district, which borders China's Tibet region.
"They may have thought about the locational sensitivity of the region and decided not to accept foreign teams," he told Reuters.
But Chhetri said the decision had nothing to do with China's sensitivity because Nepal's own rescue teams were handling the operation.
