Infrastructure
Water and sanitation
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 ...
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 ...
Billions planned to stem water shortages
Mandalay Region government is to spend billions bringing drinking water to more than 100 villages that they fear could run dry over the next few weeks. U Myo, deputy director of the region’s Urban Development Department, said on 22 April that K172.45 billion provided by the ...
Scenes from a drought
Across the country of Cambodia, water scarcity is threatening health and livelihoods. In what may be the worst regional drought in more than 50 years, brought on by an El Niño cycle exacerbated by climate change, water shortages have been declared in 18 of the ...
Gov't drought aid push underway
The Cambodian government on 25 April announced a range of assistance to help farmers affected by the worst drought the Kingdom has seen in 50 years. “The Ministry of Agriculture has researched rice and vegetables that are resistant to climate change,” said a ministry statement. “The ...
Low reservoir levels in Siem Reap affecting thousands
More than 1,000 families in Siem Reap province, Cambodia are facing clean water shortages as the water level at Baray Teuk Thla reservoir has fallen for the first time in several years due to the especially harsh drought conditions confronting the Kingdom in recent months. Keep ...
Open defecation still of great concern in Laos
Sixty two percent of people in Phongsaly province continue to practice open defecation which is higher than the national-level average rate of 40 percent. “Even where you are improving dietary intake and you have more diversified crops, where there is still open defecation, it has ...
Hadxaifong people to have clean water on tap in 2017
A huge number of people living in around 30 villages of Hadxaifong district, Vientiane, will have clean water coming from their taps next year after a local company completes the construction of the Thadeua water treatment plant. Work on the project began last year and is ...
Vietnam pushes for regional center to share Mekong River resources
Vietnam is willing to cooperate with China and other riparian countries to establish a cooperation center for sustainable use of the Mekong River’s water resources, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh said, the Greater Mekong Subregion is facing major security and development challenges, especially pollution, ...
Water supply distribution to expand in Vientiane
The Lao government has set a water connection rate goal for Vientiane of 90 percent by 2020, while the current rate remains at around 80 percent and the existing water treatment plants already operate at overload capacity. The water distribution network is also inadequate, resulting ...