Disasters and emergency response
Disasters
Business operators lack faith in local economy
Investors have expressed a lack of confidence in Thailand’s economy because of a decline in exports, the drought-induced expected slowdown in domestic consumption, and the sluggish global economy. Somkiat Anuras, vice chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber’s Business Confidence Index was only ...
Drought relief campaign over: PM
The government’s emergency campaign to distribute water to some 2.5 million people affected by drought is over, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen declared on 25 May, though for development partners and humanitarian groups, drought relief efforts continue. Humanitarian and disaster reduction manager for Save the Children ...
Amid drought, diarrhea poses severe threat
Teachers at Toul Mead Primary School in Siem Reap province tell students to bring drinking water from home to keep them hydrated in the scorching heat. But water is increasingly hard to come by as the worst drought in decades drags on. There is no free ...
Livelihoods in jeopardy as Vietnam’s Mekong Delta struggles with sediment loss
The World Wide Fund for Nature reported that suspended sediment load in the Mekong Delta declined from 160 million tons in 1992 to 75 million tons in 2014 due to the construction of hydropower dams and reservoirs on the mainstream and branches of Mekong River. It noted that sand ...
Officials investigate fires in different regions
The cause of the fire, which spread from Ok mountain in Tambon Mae Nam to Phra mountain in Tambon Bor Phud of Surat Thani province, was suspected to be forest burning, which got out of control in the dry and hot weather. Up North, a Chiang ...
Digging deeper wells costs more
Amid a devastating drought, the need to dig more, and deeper, wells is threatening to overwhelm the government’s relief budget. The cost of wells rises exponentially with depth. And as groundwater continues to drop, itself exacerbated by the digging of more and more wells, deeper is ...
Across Thailand, a cruel drought takes terrible toll
In Pathum Thani’s Lam Luk Ka district, the Lam Luk Ka-Thanya Buri Road in Moo 8 of Tambon Lat Sawai has been damaged by subsidence, causing a 1.5-metre-deep and 100-metre-long section to collapse yesterday, prompting authorities to close the road as a safety precaution. In Chon ...
Fires burn large parts of Battambang forest
Fires have consumed more than 2,000 hectares of Prek Toal protected area in Cambodia’s Battambang province, killing some animals and destroying the breeding sites of multiple endangered species, Prek Toal project managers said on 5 May.Keep reading ...
Drought exacerbates hoof and mouth outbreak among cattle
A vaccine campaign has been launched in response to an outbreak of hoof and mouth disease exacerbated by drought conditions in Kampong Thom province, officials said yesterday, as drought-relief efforts continued in Banteay Meanchey.Chan Panhavoan, director of the veterinary office of the Kampong Thom provincial ...
Fire at Arakan state IDP camp leaves hundreds homeless
A fire near Arakan State’s Sittwe Township left hundreds of Rohingya Muslims homeless as it swept through dozens of shelters at the Baw Du Ba internally displaced person camp on 3 May, local sources said. “A total of 392 families stayed in the 49 longhouses. We ...
