Disasters and emergency response

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.   ...

Farmers and exporters have expressed concerns over an Agriculture Ministry notice issued on Wednesday asking farmers to have only one harvest this upcoming dry season because of water shortages across the country, given that this could affect the paddy output next year.The ministry notice cited ...

Education and disaster management leaders from eight Southeast Asian countries gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday in a bid to encourage schools in areas prone to natural catastrophes to make children safer. ...

The fate of 70 million people rests on what happens to the Mekong river. With world leaders meeting in Paris next week for crucial UN climate talks, John Vidal journeys down south-east Asia’s vast waterway – a place that encapsulates some of the dilemmas they ...

Cambodia is ranked one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change. Many of its people rely on agriculture, and the changes to the country’s climate, whether more droughts or more floods, makes them particularly vulnerable. ...

A report released on Monday by the United Nations and the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) shows that Cambodia’s population is among the world’s 10 most affected by natural disasters. ...

As the weather pattern known as El Niño threatens to wreak havoc on climatic conditions across the globe, the Cambodian government has warned that higher-than-usual temperatures, which already sparked droughts this year, will cause next year’s rainy season to be even shorter.What’s more, the heat ...

The Chinese company that operates the hydroelectric power plant on the Kamchay River in Kampot province yesterday denied that a decision to open the dam’s gates during a recent storm was the cause of severe flooding in the area. ...

A coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) has produced a document laying out in detail the projected dire effects of climate change on the Kingdom, in the hopes it will help their voice be heard among the 25,000 delegates attending the upcoming Paris Climate Talks ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called on local authorities and government ministries to be ready to distribute water to farmers around the country due to the ongoing shortage in the Kingdom’s reservoirs. He added that if people had trouble contacting local authorities, individual farmers should ...

After two deaths to flooding in as many rainy seasons and another close call on Monday, villagers from Khva Village in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor District are demanding action. They say that the cause of the flooding is the extraction of soil nearby by a company ...

Farmers hit by drought in Battambang this year are already benefitting from a new crop insurance product for rice farmers introduced by Forte Insurance, with at least 60 families in two districts of the country’s main rice-growing province collecting payments so far. ...

Fishing communities along two of Cambodia’s principle rivers say their livelihoods are threatened by droughts that have reduced water levels and devastated fish numbers.“The Tonle Sap is 3 metres lower than last year,” Long Sochhet, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Fishing Communities, said yesterday. ...

Cambodia has sustained far fewer deaths due to natural disasters than any other country in the region this year, deputy secretary general of the National Committee for Disaster Management Ross Sovann said on Friday, at a workshop coinciding with Asean Day of Disaster Management. ...