Disasters and emergency response

NagaCorp, the owner of Phnom Penh’s only licensed casino, launched the sale of tickets for a new national lottery on Friday with the inaugural draw to take place on July 12 and a top prize of $218,000. In a statement, NagaCorp said 30 percent of net ...

Scores of security forces yesterday stormed the house of alleged secessionist leader Bun Ratha’s mother in Kampong Cham province yesterday, confiscating mobile phones and memory cards, his relatives told the Post. Bun Ratha, the alleged leader of Democratic Association, has been on the run since security ...

Despite recent efforts by the authorities to improve drainage systems around the capital, heavy flooding and swamped roads were the norm over the past week as the kick-off to the rainy season saw pelting rain almost every afternoon, residents say. Old drainage systems put in place ...

An explosion at a steel mill in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district left two employees seriously injured over the weekend, authorities said. Mao Saroeun, Stung Meanchey commune police chief, said that around 10pm on Sunday there was a small, loud explosion at a mill owned by the ...

A worker was slightly injured and more than US$100,000 in property destroyed yesterday in a fire at an oil factory in Kandal province’s Ang Snuol district, police said. Thach Phalla, Ang Snuol district deputy police chief, said the fire started at noon when some oil overflowed ...

Rising oil prices fuelled a month-to-month inflationary increase of 5.4 per cent through February and March, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics. Factors such as sanctions on Iranian oil, as well as floods that depleted Cambodian crops last year accounted for the rise ...

Large payouts last year by local insurance companies to two garment factory owners and regional natural catastrophes have resulted in a huge hike in the cost of fire insurance for commercial premises in Cambodia, brokers said. Cambodia’s insurance industry paid out some $24 million in fire ...

In order to pacify concerns that filling in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake would lead to flooding, it was claimed by officials that 10 hectares of the 90-hectare lake would be preserved to absorb heavy rainfall. Now, four years after sand began streaming into Boeng Kak, ...

Rainfall during this year’s dry season and fewer farmers cultivating tobacco has resulted in a shortage of raw tobacco and a steep price increase, industry officials and farmers said yesterday. Tola Ponlu, head of corporate and regulatory affairs at British American Tobacco (BAT) in Phnom Penh, ...

Claims on Cambodia’s six biggest insurance companies declined year on year by more than 90 per cent in the first quarter of 2012, data from the General Insurance Association of Cambodia (GIAC) shows. The value of claims in 2011 was raised by fires that gutted two ...

The Laos government has said that all the necessary environmental assessments for the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River have been completed and that no damage will be inflicted on the fisheries in countries further downstream when built, an official at the Cambodia National Mekong Committee said yesterday. Watt Botkosal, ...

Cambodia has been rebuilding after recently being hit by devastating floods that affected over one million citizens. These sudden natural disasters are tough to predict but the United Nations believes that more needs to be done to limit their impact. The BBC’s correspondent in Cambodia, Guy De ...

Poor accounting practices by ministries between 2005 and 2010 required them to seek additional government funds to the tune of $578.79 million, which was reserved for national emergencies, according to a multi-year budget analysis released on Friday by the NGO Forum on Cambodia ...

The government needs to enforce legislation on protecting the environment, even as it gives away masses of land and resources in concessions, or risk jeopardising its economic future, the UN assistant secretary-general for disaster risk reduction said yesterday. “The most critical impact of disasters today is ...

At least 105 houses were damaged by a violent rainstorm on Monday night in Prey Veng province’s Komchey Mear district. ...

Rice production grew by 6.42 percent last year, despite vast tracts of paddy being devastated by flooding, according to figures released yesterday by the Ministry of Agriculture. In the 2011 to 2012 season, 8.78 million tons of rice were harvested from 2.78 million hectares of ...

Nine villagers were injured and about 270 homes damaged when a storm ravaged Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district on Friday, police said yesterday. Sandan district governor Sim Vanna told the Post that gale-force winds and heavy rain had swept across the region, leaving a trail of ...

The Ministry of Economy and Finance yesterday signed a US$60.3 million loan package with Asian Development Bank to aid in reconstruction efforts after the Kingdom last year suffered its worst floods in a decade. ...

Two hundred tons of unmilled rice slated for export to Vietnam was destroyed in a warehouse fire in Kandal province’s Ang Snuol district early yesterday morning ...

Storms that swept through Kampot and Banteay Meanchey provinces on Friday and Saturday damaged more than 100 houses and three schools, officials said yesterday. ...

About 70 residents from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake met with Daun Penh district governor Sok Sambath yesterday to discuss the first phase of a new drainage system around the lake area that will protect against floods, a villager and municipal official said. ...

Top military officials from all 10 Asean countries yesterday attended the second Asean Military Operations Informal Meeting in Phnom Penh, an event aimed primarily at enhancing cooperation between the countries in terms of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. ...

As dignitaries marked the groundbreaking of a project to improve Phnom Penh’s defenses against flooding yesterday, a complaint had already been filed against the project’s contractor for impeding a public road. The Japanese government is putting $46 million into a new phase of the city’s flood ...

The Phnom Penh municipality is set to begin contruction on Monday for a project funded by the Japanese government, in order to improve both the infastructure of the city’s drainage system and its capability to handle flood water. ...