Malaysia’s Disaster Assistance and Rescue Team (SMART) is expected to return home today or tomorrow after assisting in the search for 55 Malaysians still missing following devastating floods and landslides in Nepal.
Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan stressed that Nepali authorities had no plans to call off the search and rescue operation, with around 5,000 people still unaccounted for.
“The team will return to Malaysia. But they will hand over all the drones brought from here to the Nepali rescue teams for their use,” he told reporters during a visit to the media centre at the 2026 UMNO General Assembly today.
The 11-member SMART team departed for Nepal last Saturday, bringing 12.4 tonnes of search and rescue equipment. The mission was initially expected to last 10 days.
Mohamad said there had been no new developments or traces of the 55 missing Malaysians, with the last known locations of their mobile phones recorded in areas badly affected by the disaster.
The floods and landslides, which struck along the Nepal-Tibet border on Aug 26, have killed hundreds of people and left thousands missing, according to Nepali and Chinese authorities.
He said the Malaysian Embassy in Kathmandu was in discussions with Nepal’s Foreign and Law ministries to determine the legal status of the missing Malaysians.
This is because Nepali law stipulates that a death certificate for a missing person can only be issued after three years, compared with seven years in Malaysia.
“If possible, we want to establish a legal mechanism so that matters such as insurance and other claims can be dealt with immediately,” he said.
Mohamad also said Malaysia was seeking Nepal’s cooperation to allow DNA samples from recovered bodies to be sent to Kuala Lumpur for comparison with samples provided by the families of the missing Malaysians.
He said Nepal currently faced a shortage of facilities and equipment needed to conduct DNA matching.
