Disasters and emergency response

More than 1,000 stalls and shops were destroyed in an over­night fire at a market in Stung Treng City, causing about $1 million in property damage, local police said on Friday. ...

Five people died and more than 200 houses in eight provinces were damaged by natural disasters in the first quarter of this year, a senior official of the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) said yesterday. ...

As China opened one of its six dams on the upper Mekong River last month to help parched Southeast Asian countries down river cope with a record drought, it was hailed as benevolent water diplomacy. But to critics of hydroelectric dams built on the Mekong over ...

With a severe drought choking the northeast, it’s only a matter of weeks before many residents of Ratanakkiri province run dry, according to villagers, local officials and organizations working in the province. ...

Korea will provide a $13.3 million concessional loan to renovate the Stung Siem Reap Phase II flood mitigation project after a deal signed yesterday between the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Korea Export and Import Bank. ...

Two homes were completely destroyed, while 35 others and four schools were damaged, by heavy rain and strong winds in the western province of Pailin on Friday.The schools remained open despite the damage, said Seng Vanntha, deputy chief of Pailin district. ...

Up to 4,000 mostly ethnic minority people in Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima district are facing a water shortage after the local supplier announced service would be suspended due to impending widescale drought. ...

Drought in Southeast Asia is raising concerns in the Cambodian and Vietnamese countryside where salinity levels are rising in the Mekong River and people are skeptical about fresh promises from Laos that it will respect the rights of downstream countries in dam construction. ...

Almost every province in Cambodia is facing some level of drought, according to director of the Meteorology Department at the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology Oum Ryna, but only a few provinces were facing a severe shortage of water. ...

Government officials on Wednesday applauded China’s decision to take emergency measures to counter the impact of a regional drought by releasing water into the Mekong River from the Jinghong Hydropower Station in China’s southwestern Yunnan province. ...

The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology issued a statement yesterday encouraging the Kingdom’s citizens to be cautious around lightning storms, which occur frequently between March and July. ...

At least 27 vehicles loaded with confiscated timber were destroyed by fire while parked in the Kravanh Forestry Administration compound in Pursat province on Sunday, leaving no evidence for potential prosecution and rights groups doubting the authorities’ version of events. ...

A small-scale sand dredging business on the banks of Sraeng lake in Banteay Meanchey’s Teuk Cho commune was shut down yesterday by Preah Net Preah district authorities after it was found to be operating without a license, according to district governor Ly Sovannarith. ...

Pailin province’s first thunderstorm of 2016 claimed a victim on Friday afternoon when two farmers were struck by lightning while returning home from their fields. ...

About 2,700 families in Kampong Cham province’s Reay Pai commune, where wells and ponds have almost dried up, could soon be left without any safe water. ...

Hundreds of cubic meters of timber on a Mondulkiri economic land concession leased to the Uni-Green Company burned to the ground yesterday after an alleged fire from a nearby forest jumped to the property, according to provincial governor Svay Sam Eng, who added that despite ...

A grass fire raged through a chicken farm in Preah Sihanouk province on Wednesday, destroying two coops and the chickens within and causing $10,000 in damage, according to provincial authorities. ...

As the Kingdom moves into the heart of the dry season, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries has issued a set of guidelines on the prevention of forest fires, stressing that jail is in the cards for those starting blazes. ...

A popular Siem Reap silk producer and tourist attraction was this week counting the cost of a fire that destroyed a stockroom and required crews from four fire engines to control. ...

Lending to farmers will be stricter this year as the El Nino weather phenomenon extends the dry season, executives at microfinance institutes (MFIs) said yesterday. ...

Cambodia’s drought has hit even the coldest provinces, as Ban Lung’s main water supplier, Tai Seng Phalit Teuksaat Co., broadcast drought warnings to the residents of Ratanakkiri early this week, advising residents to start rationing water. ...

After a boat capsized and sank off Sihanoukville last week, ferry company managers say local police have begun strictly enforcing safety regulations and rough weather warnings, in a dramatic shift from the city’s relaxed attitude toward boat safety. ...

Recent satellite images from NASA have captured a high number of fires blazing across Cambodia this season, illustrating what one forestry official called a chronic inability to deal with the Kingdom’s numerous illegally set fires, a problem exacerbated by especially dry El Niño conditions. ...

The Law on Disaster Management, which passed in July and was discussed at a government workshop in mid-December, has yet to take effect because it still requires royal and government decrees, according to officials.   ...