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    Scores Dead as Floods, Heavy Rains Hammer Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos

    Floods, landslides, and other natural disasters triggered by downpours in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam have left scores dead, with paddy fields and rice stocks destroyed, and thousands displaced from their homes in a region hard hit by COVID-19 and its economic fallout, officials and state media said Monday.


    In Vietnam, at least 90 are dead and 34 missing, with thousands of households evacuated from flooded areas to safer ground, state media and other sources say.


    Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue provinces have been hardest hit, with 41 deaths, 18 missing, and 27 deaths, 15 missing, respectively, Vietnam’s Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster and Control said on Oct. 19.


    In Thua Thien Hue, nearly 40 thousand households have been evacuated, with some 121,700 dwellings reported still under water.


    “At present, we are safe, but thousands of local households have remained without power for three days, and at first we couldn’t contact anyone for help,” a resident of Quang Tri’s Cam Lo district told RFA’s Vietnamese Service on Sunday after he and his family were rescued by boat.


    “Now, we are holding up with instant noodles until the waters go down again,” he said.


    News of a release of water from a local dam due to flooding never reached local residents, who were already cut off from outside contact, the source said, adding that his home was now submerged to a depth of two meters.


    “[The authorities] said on Facebook that they were going to discharge water from the dam, but because our area was already isolated, we never got that news, and the flood hit us at midnight. We had no chance to get away,” he said.


    A source named Thao in Quang Tri’s capital city Dong Ha confirmed that power outages had prevented residents in low-lying residential areas from learning that large quantities of water would be released from dam reservoirs.


    “They announced this on Facebook, but no one in our area was connected to the internet, so we never heard anything about it,” she said, adding that rescue teams had arrived at her home at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday to take her and her children to a safer place.


    Landslides on Oct. 12 and 18 also buried 17 workers and 13 members of a rescue team at the Rao Trang 3 Hydropower Plant in Thua Thien Hue province and 22 soldiers and officers at a military barracks in Quang Tri’s Hung Hoa province, sources said.


    The bodies of the missing soldiers were recovered on Oct. 19, but searches continue for 15 of the 17 workers buried at the Rao Trang 3 hydropower plant.


    More rain is expected to hit central areas of the country in coming days as a tropical storm forms in the South China Sea, called the East Sea in Vietnam, off the coast of the Philippines, with continued high risk of floods and landslides that have already damaged highways and roads, media sources say.


    Villagers cut off in Laos


    In Laos, storms have ravaged Savannakhet province in the country’s center, with authorities unable to access many areas due to damaged roads and not enough boats available to transport aid and other supplies, Lao sources said.


    More than 100 villages in eight districts have now been flooded, with many houses and over 10,000 hectares of paddy fields submerged, official sources in the province say.


    Heavy rains due to tropical storms along with an overflow of the Xe Ranong No. 1 Dam upstream were to blame for the devastation in Phin, a district agriculture and forestry official told RFA, saying that 35 villages in the district have been affected by floods.


    “Around 502 hectares of paddy rice has also been flooded,” the official said, adding, “Things are hard, but we will have to endure.”


    “People who live close by will get rice and dry goods more quickly than those who live far away.”


    In Phin district’s Apia village alone, 184 people in 32 families have been affected, with rising waters destroying rice fields, food stores, and villagers’ homes, a village official told RFA on Monday.


    “[Some] houses have been damaged beyond repair, and the rice that the government gave us during the last flood is now almost gone,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.


    “A store of rice reserves with 50 sacks of sticky rice has been destroyed in this flood,” another villager confirmed, adding that he had been able to move livestock and other family valuables to high ground before the flood hit, but that clothes, utensils, and other household goods had been washed away.


    “Our rice in the fields was almost ripe and was ready to be harvested soon, but the rain and floods destroyed it all. We are going to be hungry here next year,” he said.


    District officials say that authorities have too few boats now to move people from flooded areas or to transport supplies to villagers cut off by the flood or by roads damaged or cut off by fallen trees. Phin district authorities are now working with the neighboring district of Champhone to convey dry goods, medicines, clothes, and gasoline for boats to those in need, sources said.


    Thousands evacuated in Cambodia


    Floods in Cambodia have meanwhile killed at least 25 and seen 40,000 evacuated to temporary shelters, Cambodian national disaster management authorities said. More than 200,000 hectares of paddy field and nearly 80,000 farms have also been destroyed, with more than 500 school buildings and 79 garment factories damaged.


    Roads, hospitals, and dams have also been affected, authorities said.


    Cambodians in debt to banks or other lenders have been especially hard hit, with many left unable to work and make monthly payments to their creditors,


    “I don’t know what to do,” said one villager from Banteay Meanchey province’s Mongol Borey district named Sareourm. “We don’t have enough rice to eat, even though we got a small amount of food aid on Oct. 18.”


    Sareourn said he wants his creditor, a microfinance institution, to delay demands for payment until the flood waters recede, allowing him to look for a job.


    “I can’t look for work now because I’m taking care of my grandchildren, and I can’t leave them behind because the flood is now up to the ground floor of my house. If my creditor doesn’t agree, I will have no choice but to sell off my house and land to pay my debt,” he said.


    “I’m having real difficulties now,” added a villager from Battambang province named Chun Ry, who said that he can’t earn enough money now to pay back a loan from a microfinance company that helped him buy a small home and a motorbike to start a taxi service.


    “Now, people are commuting to the markets and other places mainly by boat, though.”


    “I park my bike on higher ground where I earn only about 20,000 riel [U.S. $5] per day, and half of this goes for gasoline. So it’s hard even to earn a living, not to mention paying back my loan,” he said, adding that he hopes the government can work with his creditor to cancel his payments for at least one or two months.

    Scores Dead as Floods, Heavy Rains Hammer Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos

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    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos Take Stock of Destruction as Region Braces For New Tropical Storm


    At least 111 people have now been killed in flooding and landslides in central provinces of Vietnam following heavy rains from Oct. 6 to 19, and further deaths are feared as waters continue to rise in rivers in Quang Binh province ahead of a coming tropical storm, sources in the country say.


    Highways in the provinces have also been severely damaged, with the total cost of repairs estimated at around VND 355 billion, state media said, citing figures provided by the Directorate of Roads of Vietnam on Oct. 21.


    Also on Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung and deputies of Vietnam’s National Assembly welcomed efforts by Vietnamese pop star Thuy Tien to collect more than VND 100 billion (U.S. $15,316,811) for relief work in flood-hit Quang Tri, Quang Binh, and Thua Thien Hue.


    Large-scale fundraising is normally restricted by law to state organizations or social associations to reduce the risk of personal gain, with penalties prescribed for violations. But National Assembly deputy Le Thanh Vanh voiced confidence in the work of Thuy Tien and her staff.


    “They are ready to take responsibility before the sponsors who donated the funds,” Vanh said, quoted on Oct. 21 in state media reports. “I am sure they will be completely transparent,” he said.


    Relief teams have poured for the last few days into central regions hit by floods and landslides that have destroyed roads and buried workers at a hydropower plant and soldiers at a military barracks, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung told state media on Wednesday.


    Many areas have already received help, while others remain cut off because of damaged roads, Dung said, calling on the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to send more teams to reach remote areas and give further support to those already helped.


    34 now killed in Cambodia


    Relief work meanwhile continues in Cambodia, where 34 people have now been killed by floods to date, with Prime Minister Hun Sen urging local authorities to guard damaged homes to prevent looting and calling on banks and other lending institutions to delay or reduce payments owed to them by villagers impoverished by the coronavirus pandemic.


    “COVID-19 has hit us hard for the last 10 months, and now we are facing floods that are destroying us,” Hun Sen said.


    “We have not concluded our damage assessments yet. For now, we are just working to rescue people and take them to safer areas,” he said.


    Around 10,000 families have already been safely evacuated from flood-hit areas, Cambodian media sources say.


    Speaking to RFA, National Committee for Disaster Management spokesperson Khun Sokha said that flood waters are now receding in several provinces, including Oddor Meanchey, Pursat, Takeo, Pailin, Kampong Speu, Stung Treng, and the two hardest-hit provinces of Banteay Meahchey and Battambang.


    The 34 flood deaths reported so far reflect the inability of central government and local authorities to deal effectively with the disaster, said Kean Ponlok, secretary general of the Cambodia Intellectual Students Alliance.


    “The authorities must look into the causes of these deaths and hold themselves responsible,” he said, adding that because of corruption in Cambodia, he is not convinced that all donations handed over to the government will be spent on victims of the floods.


    Banteay Meanchey villager Nay Thoeun said she has now lost her home and job because of the floods and is debt after borrowing money from a bank to buy medicine to treat the tuberculosis to which she was exposed in her family.


    “I am very worried. I’m living now under a shelter on a hill, but the water is still rising here, and I’m afraid of [venomous insects].”


    “I’m urgently calling for aid to be delivered to this hill. There are many poor families here,” she said.


    Flood begins to recede in Laos


    In Laos, flood waters have begun to recede from eight districts in Savannakhet province, where 125 villages containing 5,134 families, or nearly 30,000 people, have been affected, Lao media sources say.


    In the province’s Sepon district alone, 40 villages containing nearly a thousand households have been flooded, with many houses completely destroyed, sources said.


    Sepon’s La Or and Vang Khot villages were hardest hit, with 44 houses swept away, and another 90 dwellings hit by fast-running floods and partly damaged, a district official said on Oct. 21.


    “The district is still asking for help, but we will set up temporary refuges in the villages for people to live in,” the official said, adding that funds are being sought for building materials such as roofs and nails for the construction of temporary shelters.


    Fast-rising water hit one village on Oct. 18 and swept away 28 or 29 houses, leaving nothing to come back to when villagers returned two days later, one villager said. “Now we have no place to stay in but the schools, and no one has any clothing. We are waiting to see how the authorities plan to handle this.”


    “We are all in a very poor condition. We have no rice to eat, and all our rice fields are flooded. We will have to buy all the rice that we eat next year,” he said.


    “The water is receding now, but the villagers’ houses are damaged beyond repair, and nothing can be restored. There is no thought of fixing them now,” a rescue team member said, adding that many residents of Sepon and other districts are still cut off because of damage to the roads.


    Though Lao authorities had moved quickly to help victims of the floods, more help is needed, an NGO official said, asking that neither he nor his organization be named. “For a start, we urgently need dry food and drinking water, clothes, rice, and many other things, as so many houses have been swept away.”


    “The authorities did go down to do everything they could, but there are just too many villagers to help,” he said.


    Many residents in areas of Sepon and Phin districts are still out of reach, a Sepon district official said. “We are still unable to get to almost half of the areas affected by the floods because the roads have been cut off by landslides,” he said.


    Losses in Savannakhet including houses damaged, livestock drowned, and paddy fields destroyed are still being calculated, the official Vientiane Times said on Oct. 21.

    https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vie...020184730.html

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