Priti Kharel, the older sister of Milan Kharel, speaks to the Hankyoreh in Kathmandu, Nepal, on Sept. 1, 2026. (Jeong Bong-bi/Hankyoreh)
“The Korean team director really loved him. He said he’d invite him to Korea sometime.”The family of Milan Kharel, 32, looked at his final Facebook post as they spoke to the Hankyoreh in Kathmandu. It showed a picture of him forming a heart with his arms alongside Korean colleagues, with a message reading, “Weekend well spent with colleagues!”The post was dated Aug. 6 — 20 days before Kharel’s workplace at the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower plant construction site was swept away by floods.The Upper Trishuli-1 plant, which was being built by Doosan Enerbility and Korea South-East Power, suffered some of the worst damage of the flooding that took place in Nepal on Aug. 26. Nine Koreans who had been working at the plant at the time of the floods remain unaccounted for.Kharel and Bikram Sapkota, 35, had worked with the Koreans for over four years. Their fates also remain unknown.The Independent Power Producers’ Association, Nepal, estimates that 576 people are missing from that plant alone.In response to the Hankyoreh’s request to hear their story, four of Kharel’s family members and seven of Sapkota’s gathered at a café in Kathmandu on Tuesday evening. Both families said they had traveled throughout Nepal in their search for the two missing men, who they insisted would have found a way to survive.Kharel’s family described him as someone who “was excellent at his studies from a young age and graduated from engineering college with outstanding grades.” They also said he had paid for his older sisters’ weddings and his parents’ hospital costs.Sapkota’s family explained that Bikram had a 4-year-old daughter, describing him as “someone who was devoted to his family and only thought of his wife and daughter.”The families’ struggle to find their missing loved one has been difficult and frustrating. They explained that they had “not received any contact or guidance” from the company after the disaster.Desperate, they put up posters with the two men’s pictures at a Trishuli military base used by rescue helicopters and at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu. They called on the government, company and news outlets to search for the missing men.
