It was confirmed that Doosan Enerbility(034020) and Korea South-East Power (KOEN) workers, who lost contact after a massive flood on the 26th local time in Nepal, had been building the country's largest hydropower plant at the site.
According to the government and industry on the day, the place where contact was lost with nine Korean workers (six from Doosan Enerbility and three from Korea South-East Power (KOEN)) is the Upper Trishuli (UT)-1 hydropower plant construction site in the Rasuwa region of northern Nepal. It was being built with a capacity of 216 megawatts (MW) on the Trishuli River, 70 kilometers northwest of Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal.
The total project cost is $647 million (about 897.1 billion won). Upon completion, it will be the largest in Nepal. To minimize political and financial risks due to local conditions in Nepal, Korea South-East Power (KOEN) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) have jointly developed the project from the outset. Doosan Enerbility is responsible for the plant's construction and the manufacture and supply of key equipment such as turbines and generators.
Construction on the plant began in Jan. 2022 and was scheduled to be completed by the end of this year. Once the plant is completed, Korea South-East Power (KOEN) was to operate it directly for 27 years.
Doosan Enerbility and Korea South-East Power (KOEN) moved quickly to respond right after the disaster. Doosan Enerbility has set up an emergency response headquarters and plans to dispatch an on-site response team, including CEO Jeong Yeon-in, to the site on the 27th. A company official said, "We will do our utmost to support the search and rescue of the missing in close cooperation with the relevant authorities and project stakeholders," adding, "We earnestly hope that the employees who are out of contact will return safely to their families as soon as possible."
Korea South-East Power (KOEN) is also operating a 24-hour response system led by acting President Cho Young-hyeok. A KOEN official said, "Centering on the department in charge of overseas projects, we are making continuous attempts to make contact and taking necessary measures according to the manual."
The government also plans to dispatch a joint rapid response team to Nepal on the 27th.