Cambodia: Mekong flooding claims dozens
Pastor Dale Morgan
Cambodia: Mekong flooding claims dozens*
Cambodia seeks U.N. aid; Vietnam orders evacuations
Tuesday, August 22, 2006 Posted: 0104 GMT (0904 HKT)
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (Reuters) -- Cambodia and Vietnam are trying to
rush aid to thousands of people left homeless from heavy rain that have
claimed more than four dozen lives in the two countries.
In Cambodia, torrential rains swelling the annual Mekong floods have
killed at least eight Cambodians and damaged several thousand hectares
(acres) of paddy fields, officials said.
The government was seeking United Nations help to get food to thousands
of villagers made homeless by the floods, Nhim Vanda, deputy chairman of
the national disaster committee, told Reuters on Monday.
Cambodia's Red Cross had distributed food to nearly 10,000 people in the
southern province of Kampot, the hardest hit, but others were still
awaiting help, provincial governor Thach Khorn said.
Four people were killed in Kampot, where the floods had damaged more
than 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres) of paddy fields, he said.
In the western province of Kampong Speu, a 14-year-old girl was swept
away by a flash flood while cutting grass to feed cattle and two
children drowned in the northeastern province of Kratie, officials said.
Nhim Vanda said that while the floods had damaged rice crops in the
short term, they might be beneficial overall.
"Floods have killed people and destroyed infrastructures, but at the
same time they are also bringing fertile marsh soil," he said.
The floods also damaged roads, bridges and schools, officials said.
In Vietnam, flooding, landslides and lightning have killed 15 people and
left one missing since this past weekend in Vietnam, bringing the
country's toll in a week of torrential rain to 42, according to reports
in that country.
Thousands have been evacuated to higher ground as water levels in the
northern region's main rivers were expected to continue rising with more
rainfall forecast for the coming week, state media quoted a government
report as saying on Sunday.
Northern Vietnam is not the country's key area for rice production, but
more rain also was expected in the southern Mekong Delta rice basket in
coming days. However, most of the summer-autumn rice crop has already
been harvested.
Natural disasters, especially floods and storms, kill several hundred
people in Vietnam each year, mainly during the storm season between May
and October.
This year's rains and floods caused no damage to the coffee crop in the
Central Highlands where coffee trees are planted on higher ground.
Officials said four people were killed in a landslide in the northern
province of Yen Bai on Saturday. Lightning killed two people in Nghe An
province and two more on the outskirts of capital Hanoi while five were
swept away in flash flooding.
Sunday's Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said two people drowned as their
boat capsized early on Saturday on a river in the southern province of
Dong Nai.
Another man was swept away and reported missing in the northern province
of Phu Tho after he tried to save his fish pond, the government report said.
As of Friday, at least 27 people were reported killed in northern and
central regions of the Southeast Asian country.