Disasters and emergency response

Falling crop yields, damage to infrastructure and heat-related illnesses brought on by climate change could cost the four Southeast Asian countries of the lower Mekong River basin $34 billion per year, researchers say. A report released on Monday found that climate change could cost Cambodia, ...

Authorities have vowed to seize fireworks and punish anyone caught letting off explosives as Lunar New Year celebrations get under way today. The warning by the Phnom Penh municipality came as the Interior Ministry revealed plans to station more than 20 fire trucks around the city ...

The Phnom Penh police’s fire brigade is creating a new committee to determine the cause of a blaze at O’Russei market on Sunday night, an official said. The fire, he said, was extinguished within an hour and led to what vendors are saying equates to ...

Last year saw a 70 per cent drop in fatalities caused by natural disasters compared with 2013, the government’s National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) said yesterday. ...

Tropical Storm Sinlaku is expected to hit Cambodia today, bringing with it heavy rains and flooding for residents in the Kingdom’s northeastern provinces, a government meteorologist confirmed. Mondulkiri and Ratanakkiri are expected to be the most vulnerable areas, and the storm will have little effect on ...

Following the rounds of tropical downpours across the Philippines, danger now aims for Vietnam and Cambodia for the weekend. ...

A market fire in Prey Veng province’s Kompong Trabek district destroyed more than 200 stalls early Wednesday morning, spreading to more than 20 adjacent houses and causing almost $3 million in damage, officials said. ...

The committee that runs Old Market in Phnom Penh told the owners of stalls that were gutted by a fire on Monday that they would receive no compensation and would have to rebuild their businesses themselves. Yun Chandara, director of the committee that oversees the ...

Phnom Penh City Hall on Monday denied that someone set fire on Psar Chas market (Old Market), saying that the fire was caused by electric fault in a store inside the market. The denial came after public as well as social media users said that arson ...

Villagers in Banteay Meanchey province’s Malai district have complained that a politically connected firm owned by one of the country’s most influential businessmen has flooded their homes. ...

Construction of the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River in Laos is almost half finished, the developer behind it has said. ...

Tardiness is usually discouraged within school settings, but this year, the Education Ministry is endorsing a month-long delay for the whole academic year. Public schools, which typically start in the beginning of October, will this year commence classes on November 3, with studies continuing until the ...

About 71 Cambodian people had been killed by lightning strikes in the first nine months of 2014, down 30 percent from 101 deaths over the same period last year, a disaster control official said Monday. ...

Amid a recent spate of riverbank collapses in Kampong Cham province that have so far damaged three properties, authorities are advising the owners of nearly 40 houses to move their structures. Yesterday’s collapse in the province’s Kampong Cham commune destroyed the Khyol Tonle restaurant in front ...

Months after announcing the resignation of its founder and promising to start afresh to continue its “vital work” protecting vulnerable girls in Cambodia, the U.S.-based Somaly Mam Foundation (SMF) announced Saturday that it has ceased operations, telling supporters to turn to other organizations to help ...

A Cambodian court on Friday accused Philippe Broaly, 49, director of Enfants du Cambodge, of rape and sexual molestation after he has allegedly sexually exploited seven boys living in his organization, a senior police officer confirmed. “The Preah Sihanouk provincial court formally charged the French ...

NGO workers interviewing evictees in Oddar Meanchey province said police pulled their car over without cause on Saturday and tried to seize one of their cameras, the third reported case of authorities in the area harassing the group’s staff in the past month. ...

A torrential downpour that lasted over three hours yesterday morning has left many in the capital struggling with flooded houses, businesses and travel conditions, sparking outcry that authorities have not done enough to manage the rain’s effects. Flooding took place in virtually every district in ...

At least 45 people in Cambodia have died and thousands of families have been evacuated from homes to higher grounds in floods caused by monsoon rains and rivers overflowing their banks, a senior official said Thursday. “In the past three weeks, floods have claimed 45 lives ...

Floods caused by heavy rains and increase of water level in Mekong river have claimed 35 lives, Nhim Vanda, first vice chairman of National Committee for Disaster Management. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen used a speech at a food security seminar Monday to once again stress the need for Cambodia to develop modern irrigation facilities to better exploit the land and meet growing food requirements. Speaking from his office building in Phnom Penh, Mr. Hun ...

The start of the school year has been delayed for a month due to flooding that has affected many of the country’s schools this month, the Ministry of Education said Sunday. Ros Salin, spokesman and cabinet chief for the ministry, said that the school year will ...

Recent flooding has claimed another victim, a child in Kratie province who drowned, bringing the total death toll to 30, Keo Vy, cabinet director at the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM), said yesterday. While water levels are declining across the 12 provinces affected by flooding, ...

Flooding across 12 provinces has killed another two people, bringing the death toll to 29, an official said yesterday. The deaths occurred in Kampong Cham and Prey Veng provinces, according to Keo Vy, cabinet director at the National Committee for Disaster Management. ...