• 16,000 people displaced in Myanmar
The torrent of water unleashed in a deadly Laos dam collapse has drained into Cambodia, forcing thousands to evacuate, as rescuers yesterday battled monsoon rains to find scores of Laotians still missing after entire villages were washed away.
Twenty-seven people have been confirmed dead, with 131 still missing, after the Xe-Namnoy dam collapsed on Monday in a remote southern corner of Laos, leaving villagers with little time to escape.
It is an unprecedented accident to strike the hydropower industry in Laos, where the Communist government has dammed large sections of its myriad waterways to generate electricity that is mostly sold to its neighbours.
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The search and rescue effort entered a third day yesterday, with China, Vietnam and Thailand sending in specialists, while villagers picked through their wrecked, mud-caked homes for possessions as the flood waters receded.
Carcasses of livestock floated in the knee-deep waters in a devastated village visited by AFP, as heavy rain pounded the area.
Thousands of villagers downstream in Cambodia have also been forced to flee as the water once held back by the dam flowed south.
“Water is still rising, so more people will be evacuated,” Men Kong, a government spokesman in Cambodia’s Stung Streng province, told AFP.
Cambodian soldiers ferried villagers and motorbikes from flooded zones on wooden boats, while supplies were handed out to some who found refuge on dry land.
In Laos, Chinese rescuers in life jackets and helmets joined local soldiers searching for the missing Thursday, according to an AFP reporter at the scene, while community volunteers pitched in with private boats to return to villages still submerged.
Meanwhile, More than 16,000 people are thought to have been displaced by floods following heavy monsoon rains in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
The flood began at the weekend and worst hit the country’s eastern Kayin state on the border with Thailand. Large areas have been evacuated and people were moved to shelters to wait for the waters to subside.
The summer monsoon has brought heavy rain across most of Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Japan.
According to the Myanmar Times, residents of the state capital Hpa-an say that while each year there is flooding, this time things are much worse.
More than 10,000 residents of the city had to leave their homes. The extreme flooding comes just days after a burst dam in Laos flooded several villages leaving many dead and hundreds more missing.