Disasters and emergency response
Disasters
Rising Salinity Threatens Rice Crops on Southeast Asia’s Sinking Coast
Prak Nhorn has no hope for his rice crop this year. “When I transplant seedlings, they die out. The salt is still in the soil,” said the farmer from Slab Ta Aon village, a riverside settlement roughly 150 kilometers southwest of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, and ...
Elise Cutts
7 north-eastern provinces bracing for Mekong River overflows until Thursday
Thailand’s National Water Command Centre is advising people living near the banks of the Mekong River in seven north-eastern provinces to brace for sudden overflows from today (Sunday) until Thursday. The centre said that heavy rain, triggered by Tropical Depression Mulan on August 11th and 12th in the ...
Thai PBS World
‘Hungry river’ phenomenon to blame for severe erosion of Mekong River banks in Laos
Upstream dams and sand mining have caused significant erosion along the Mekong River in western Laos, according to experts, devastating riparian communities in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation with high waters and powerful currents. But residents of those communities say they believe that other issues are to ...
RFA Lao; Translated by Max Avary for RFA Lao. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Incomes dry up for farmers on Cambodia’s huge lake
Life has never been easy for farmers along Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake – the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia – and now water shortages, soil degradation and the rising costs for chemicals have added to their hardships. “Each season, the most challenging problems we farmers ...
Sao Phal Niseiy
Tonle Sap, Mekong water levels continue to rise amid flood warnings
The water levels of the Mekong and Tonle Sap has risen and is likely to continue to rise after more than a month of persistent rainfall, raising flood alerts in various parts of the country. Chan Yutha, Spokesman and Secretary of State of the Ministry of ...
Khmer Times
Mekong Delta province declares coastal erosion emergency
The southernmost province of Ca Mau has announced a state of emergency following the erosion of 2.7 km (1.67 miles) of coastal embankment. The declaration came Wednesday with five dike sections along its western coast in Tran Van Thoi and U Minh districts on the verge ...
An Minh
Thunderstorms damage over 800 houses in Mekong Delta
Thunderstorms, strong winds and high tides damaged over 800 houses in Ca Mau, Kien Giang and Bac Lieu provinces in the Mekong Delta in the past three days. The Committee for Disaster Prevention of Ca Mau Province said Tuesday that 752 houses and more than 340 ...
An Minh, Nguyen Phuong
Mekong dams must release less water in dry season to preserve habitats, experts say
Abnormally high-water levels in the Mekong River at the end of May indicate that dams on the river must release less water during the dry season to protect the ecosystem, experts said at an online panel Monday. Rain levels during the dry season this year have ...
Eugene Whong for RFA
Saving the Mekong delta from drowning
Southeast Asia’s most productive agricultural region and home to 17 million people could be mostly underwater within a lifetime. Saving the Mekong River Delta requires urgent, concerted action among countries in the region to lessen the impact of upstream dams and better manage water and ...
ROB JORDAN | Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Another Mekong River dam in Laos begins review process
Lao officials will soon submit plans for the Phou Ngoy Dam and hydropower plant to the Mekong River Commission for review, but villagers whose livelihoods would be hurt by the construction worry they will be left out of the process. Thailand’s Charoen Energy and Water Asia ...
