Disasters and emergency response

The government of Laos, in partnership with the United States, recently hosted the Lower Mekong Initiative Disaster Relief Exercise and Exchange in Vientiane.  The exercise and exchange is an annual initiative between the governments of Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and the United States. Each year ...

Severe drought and water shortages have hit Sukhothai’s Ban Dan Lan Hoi district for the second year this year, affecting residents, livestock and farmland in 17 villages. Keep reading ...

The government is ready to help Indonesia tackle the haze pollution problem which has spread over large parts of the region after its envoy admitted the country’s efforts are not enough to stop the fires, Foreign Ministry deputy permanent secretary Vitavas Srivihok said. Keep reading ...

After two days of rain the Prachin Buri river overflowed and flooded the old market of Kabin Buri Municipality in Kabin Buri district early on 6 October, reports said.  Keep reading ...

As Cambodia contends with one of the strongest El Niño cycles in recent memory, a new study of millions of dengue cases over the past two-decades-plus has shown that spikes in the deadly disease across Southeast Asia may be linked to the weather phenomenon. Upswings in ...

Fishing communities along two of Cambodia’s principle rivers say their livelihoods are threatened by droughts that have reduced water levels and devastated fish numbers. “The Tonle Sap is 3 metres lower than last year,” Long Sochhet, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Fishing Communities, said on ...

The government has called on farmers across the country to grow plants that require less water than rice amid the ongoing risk of drought. “Farmers, for example, can grow corn-for-animal feed and pods instead,” government spokesman Maj-General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said on 4 October. Keep reading ...

People living in the Chao Phraya River basin should prepare for a drought crisis that will last until 2017, and those in Bangkok should store water for consumption during the dry season, a seminar was told. Anond Snidwongs, director of the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development ...

Two years since the Cambodian government passed a law on fire safety – and hot on the heels of a recent spate of fires at local garment factories, neighbourhoods and nightclubs – a recent informal survey has found that even high-end hotels still widely lack ...

Dealing with and attempting to mitigate disaster scenarios is why experts, both military and civilian, from six nations were in the capital of Laos participating in the 2015 Lower Mekong Initiative Disaster Relief Exercise and Exchange. The LMI DREE is an annual civil-military disaster preparedness and ...