Disasters and emergency response
Disaster-prone year uses fraction of possible emergency fund
In a year of disastrous floods, the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation accounted for more than 62 percent of total emergency expenditure, parliament heard on 21 January. Yet barely over one-tenth of the K100 billion emergency fund under the president’s control was utilised. The President’s Office ...
Severest drought in 20 years hits Khon Kaen
Khon Kaen province is facing its severest water shortage in two decades, with Ubonrat Dam at only 27% of its holding capacity, according to the provincial fisheries office. Keep reading ...
Rice growers drilling wells in dry riverbed
Some rice farmers in Phitsanulok province are drilling wells in their dry riverbed to get around the Irrigation Department’s warning not to grow off-season crops due to the water shortage, insisting it’s the only livelihood they know. Keep reading ...
Water shortage 'will hit after Songkran'
Conserving water must be made an urgent national priority to cope with a water shortage crisis expected to hit Thailand after Songkran if precautions are not taken, a consultancy firm says. Water stocks in four major reservoirs which are the main sources of water in the Chao ...
Series of small quakes near Yangon under watch
Seismologists are keeping a close eye on a series of small earthquakes shaking Yangon, with the Myanmar Earthquake Committee suspecting they are aftershocks of a larger jolt that occurred on the evening of 12 January, blacking out wide areas of the city. That quake, widely felt ...
El Nino likely to set new weather records: Experts
The impact of El Nino in 2016 will likely surpass last year’s record to become strongest ever in history, according to experts. Hoang Duc Cuong, Director of Vietnam’s National Centre for Hydro-Meteorology Forecasting, issued the forecast at a conference held late last week to review the national ...
Cambodia’s lightning deaths spike in 2015
Deaths from lightning strikes jumped 42.6 per cent year-to-year in 2015, with 107 people killed and another 77 injured across Cambodia, according to statistics released on 5 January by the National Committee for Disaster Management. The numbers represent a marked increase from 2014, when 75 people died ...
New Thongkhankham market rises from the ashes
The building that will house the new Thongkhankham market in Chanthabouly district, Vientiane, is now 50 percent complete and it is expected the whole complex will be finished by the end of this year. The modern five-storey complex and its two underground parking levels are a ...
Flood aid brings relief, but also anger and distrust
Donor aid to villages afflicted by the July-August flooding is just a lucky dip, say angry residents. They blame “sloppy” out-of-town NGOs and ill-equipped local authorities for directing money – sometimes more than once – to some villages while completely neglecting others. Donors themselves say villagers ...
Thapaung farmers face silted waterways
Inadequate irrigation could lead to the loss of more than 1000 acres of farmland in Ayeyarwady Region as creeks and rivers are drying up, farmers say. The rice growers, in Thapaung township, are still recovering from floods in August and September that forced them to ...
