Disasters and emergency response

Late last week, Vietnam handed over some assistance to Laos and Cambodia as the two fellow Southeast Asian states continue to manage the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic. While the development was in line with what Hanoi had previously signaled, it nonetheless put the ...

Saline intrusion in the Mekong Delta will likely remain at a high level until the end of April or early May, before gradually declining, according to the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting. In the worst case scenario, drought and saltwater intrusion may last even longer if ...

The Cambodian government should take urgent measures to reduce the risk that the country’s severely overcrowded prisons will suffer COVID-19 outbreaks, Human Rights Watch said today. Reducing overcrowding in prisons is important to prevent outbreaks, which would have serious health consequences for prisoners, prison staff, and the ...

The World Bank has approved a $20 million line of credit from the International Development Association (IDA) to assist Cambodia’s COVID-19 emergency response. This is part of the banks first emergency support package dedicated to fast-track COVID-19 aid. The World Bank said, the funds will help ...

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has allocated 800 million VND (nearly 34,000 USD) to five provinces which have declared an emergency due to saltwater intrusion. The money comes from the ministry’s Vietnam Environmental Protection Fund. The provinces are Long An, Tien Giang, Ben Tre, Kien Giang and Ca ...

Hundreds of thousands of people displaced by conflict in Myanmar face a health “catastrophe” from the Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, a rights group warned, as international calls grow for an end to fighting. Overcrowded camps with an estimated 350,000 people were “Covid-19 tinderboxes”, Human Rights Watch said. Myanmar ...

The monsoon season, which usually runs from about May to October, came two weeks late in 2019 and ended three weeks early, leaving Thailand with less rainfall than usual, according to the Mekong River Commission.   That is contributing to a drought that is drying up ...

The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) and its member organizations, Equality Myanmar, Progressive Voice and Women’s League of Burma, have jointly called for the full restoration of Internet services in townships in Rakhine and Chin states to enable communities to access critical ...

As societies around the world focus on containing the spread of the novel coronavirus, millions of people in Southeast Asia have another worry on their minds: How to put food on their table amid a devastating drought. In Thailand, historically low levels of rainfall since last summer have ...

The six countries in the Langcang-Mekong Region vowed to further enhance water resource cooperation in a video conference during the 2020 LMC (Lancang-Mekong Cooperation) Week activity that began on Monday. “At present, the novel coronavirus is spreading globally, and all countries in the world are fighting ...