Flash floods devastate Upper Trishuli-1 construction site, destroying much of its weir and workers’ base camp Doosan Enerbility CEO Jung Yeon-in responds to reporters' questions before departing from Incheon Airport for Nepal on Thursday. (Newsis) South Korean companies Doosan Enerbility and Korea South-East Power Co. dispatched emergency response teams to Nepal on Thursday after nine Korean workers went missing when devastating flash floods hit the Himalayan country.Of the nine workers missing since Wednesday’s floods, six are employees of Doosan Enerbility and three are from state-run KOEN. All nine had been working on the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project in Nepal’s Rasuwa district.Doosan Enerbility sent a team of eight officials, including CEO Jung Yeon-in, to Nepal on Thursday afternoon to support search-and-rescue efforts and assess damage at the construction site.“We will do our best to rescue our employees who remain out of contact,” Jung told reporters at Incheon Airport before departing for Nepal on Thursday. “We are currently working closely with the relevant authorities.”The company, which is carrying out engineering, procurement and construction work for the hydropower project, said it may send additional personnel depending on conditions on the ground.Doosan established an emergency response task force Wednesday and has been working with local authorities and project partners to locate the missing workers.Of 21 Korean employees working at the project, 16 were at the construction site when the flooding struck. Six remain out of contact, including one locally hired Korean employee. The company had initially said five employees were unaccounted for before confirming the additional cases.Ten other Doosan Enerbility employees from Korea who had initially been reported stranded were confirmed to be safe after evacuating with about 200 Nepalese and other foreign workers. The group is now waiting for further support.KOEN, which is in charge of investment and operations, also dispatched six employees from its headquarters to Nepal on Thursday for on-site rescue and response.Three of KOEN’s seven employees stationed in Nepal remain out of contact. The others include personnel based at the company’s office in the capital, Kathmandu.“We plan to focus on the search for the missing employees and assessing conditions at the site, and do our utmost to ensure that our employees can return safely,” Yoon Jang-hyun, head of KOEN’s new growth division, told reporters at Incheon Airport on Thursday before leaving for Nepal. He added that the company is in contact through multiple channels, including the Foreign Ministry’s rapid response team, the Nepalese government and companies involved in the project.The missing workers were involved in the construction of the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower plant, a 216-megawatt run-of-river facility being built on the Trishuli River about 70 kilometers northwest of Kathmandu.The $647 million project is expected to increase Nepal’s total installed power generation capacity by about 10 percent once completed.The project is one of Nepal’s largest foreign direct investment projects, jointly developed from an early stage by KOEN and the International Finance Corp., the World Bank’s commercial arm. Construction began in January 2022 and the plant had been scheduled for completion by the end of this year. The project was about 84 percent complete before the flooding, according to Yoon.The flooding, however, has now damaged the site, which could significantly delay the completion.“More than 90 percent of the upper weir appears to have been washed away, and about 90 percent of the base camp, where construction workers were staying, also appears to have been destroyed,” said Yoon. “As far as we know, the underground powerhouse was not buried by debris.”As of Thursday, more than 1,300 people were reported missing and at least 165 were confirmed dead, following the catastrophic floods and mud that swept across Nepal and Tibet, according to Nepalese and Chinese authorities.