Israel's humanitarian aid agency, IsraAID, announced on Thursday that it is deploying an emergency response team to Nepal to assist with disaster relief efforts following recent flooding and landslides in the region.
According to the agency's statement, the team is scheduled to arrive in Nepal on Thursday. Their initial mission will focus on urgent relief distributions and providing mental health support and protection for the affected communities.
IsraAID CEO Yotam Polizer expressed his concern for the region, stating, “We are devastated to see the scenes unfolding in Nepal, as entire communities have been destroyed by flash flooding and landslides. Our thoughts are with everyone affected. We will do everything we can to bring urgent support where it is needed most.”
Joining IsraAID in Israeli-based delegations to the region is NATAN Worldwide Disaster Relief, who also announced they were dispatching an emergency team to the affected area.
"NATAN volunteers - medical and mental health professionals who leave their daily routines at a moment's notice - are arriving in Nepal to provide medical and psychosocial care to survivors and to strengthen local healthcare systems. Precisely at a community's moment of crisis, we are there to extend a hand, stand behind them, and walk alongside them on the path toward recovery.” said Gil Reines, Chair of NATAN’s Executive Board.
Search, rescue for missing Israeli tourist
Harel Insurance Company has also announced that it is sending a search and rescue team to Nepal after receiving a report about a missing Israeli policyholder in a remote mountainous area affected by flooding.
The Harel team, which consists of approximately eight Israeli rescuers, is scheduled to depart for Nepal on Thursday. They will work to locate the missing policyholder and search for a group of travelers he was hiking with in the Rasuwa region, near the border crossing between Nepal and China.
According to information received by the Harel 669 Search and Rescue situation room, the policyholder, a man in his sixties, embarked on a hiking route with a group of foreign tourists. After severe flooding and heavy mudslides struck the area, communication with the group was lost, and their whereabouts have remained unknown since then.
New risks of flooding
Nepal and China both warned on Thursday of fresh risks of flooding in the Himalayas as two lakes that have developed on either side of their border threaten to burst in a region still grappling with this week's catastrophic flood.
Search and rescue operations are still underway in the debris-strewn valleys and hillsides, with nearly 1,000 people still missing after Wednesday's flood struck the border regions of Nepal and China, killing at least 362 people.
Both countries have blamed the flood on a glacier collapse that pushed rock, ice, mud and debris into river systems in the mountains.
Nepal's disaster authority issued a notice on Thursday warning that a lake formed by debris blocking a river at the flood site is rising and at risk of bursting.
"Residents of the lower banks... passengers, rescuers engaged in rescue operations, and all concerned are requested to exercise special caution and stay in safe places away from the river banks and risky areas," the authority said.