‘Evacuate!’ Missing Worker’s Warning Helped Save Colleagues From Nepal Floods

Milan Kharel’s last Facebook post showed him smiling with Korean colleagues, his arms forming a heart beneath the words, “Weekend well spent with colleagues!” Twenty days later, floods swept away the workplace where he and fellow Nepali worker Bikram Sapkota were employed.

“

The Korean team director really loved him. He said he’d invite him to Korea sometime.

Kharel, 32, and Sapkota, 35, had worked alongside Korean employees for more than four years at the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower plant construction site. The project was being built by Doosan Enerbility and Korea South-East Power, and suffered some of the worst damage in the flooding on Aug. 26. Nine Korean workers also remain unaccounted for. The Independent Power Producers’ Association of Nepal estimates that 576 people are missing from the plant alone.

“

was excellent at his studies from a young age and graduated from engineering college with outstanding grades.

Four members of Kharel’s family and seven from Sapkota’s met in Kathmandu as they continued looking for the two men. Relatives said they had traveled throughout Nepal and insisted that both workers would have found a way to survive. Kharel’s family described him as an outstanding student who had helped pay for his sisters’ weddings and his parents’ hospital bills. Sapkota’s family said he was devoted to his wife and four-year-old daughter.

“

someone who was devoted to his family and only thought of his wife and daughter.

The search has been difficult and frustrating. The families said they had “not received any contact or guidance” from the company after the disaster. They posted photographs of the missing men at a military base in Trishuli used by rescue helicopters and at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu. Earlier, they visited Chitwan, near the mouth of the Trishuli, where bodies were being recovered, then traveled 170 kilometers to Kathmandu. They also sought help from village leaders near the construction site, but said they had been told access was impossible.

“

not received any contact or guidance