Environment and natural resources

Flooding spread over the weekend as storms hit the country meaning Siem Reap, Battambang and Pailin have all been added to the list of provinces affected by high waters. In Siem Reap province, Nuon Krisna, director of the provincial department of water resources and meteorology, said ...

A village chief in Kompong Cham province’s flooded Tonle Bit commune Thursday accused opposition leader Kem Sokha of refusing to provide emergency supplies to CPP supporters during a donation run on Tuesday. Prek Touch village chief Sar Bora said that Mr. Sokha, vice president of the ...

Cambodia announced Sunday to cancel the annual Water Festival next month since the country has been hit hard by Mekong flash floods, the government said in a statement on Sunday. “This year, Mekong floods have been severely hitting Cambodia, claiming human lives and inundating houses, schools, ...

The World Wildlife Fund, one of the biggest conservation groups, has called for an emergency meeting with the Mekong River Commission (MRC) in the wake of Laos’ decision to proceed with a second dam on the river. There are fears that this move will seriously undermine ...

The death toll from flooding across the country has risen to 39, while the Mekong River remains above emergency levels in Prey Veng and Kandal provinces, a government official said on Friday. Keo Vy, cabinet chief for the government’s National Committee for Disaster Management, said that ...

Laos has notified the Mekong River Commission (MRC) that it will go ahead with the construction of the Don Sahong Dam, which environmentalists say could threaten the ecosystem of the Lower Mainstream Mekong and have a severe impact on the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands ...

Hundreds of police and soldiers have been working around the clock since Wednesday to prevent a major dam built during the Khmer Rouge period in Banteay Meanchey province from breaking and flooding as many as eight surrounding villages, officials said Thursday. Heavy rains, compounded by floodwaters ...

In Cambodia, there is talk of change. Not just from Hun Sen, the prime minister, who has promised reforms after his party suffered a significant blow in recent elections, but from environmental activists and campaigners, who say there has never before been such an opportunity ...

Thousands of students were unable to attend classes yesterday after returning from holiday, as more than 500 schools remained closed due to flooding that has claimed 50 lives so far this year. According to a report released by the National Committee for Disaster Management, 513 schools ...

A fleet of five speedboats set off from Sisowath Quay on Tuesday afternoon carrying Phnom Penh’s governor, 19 local officials, several bodyguards and a press team, as the municipal authorities’ plan to deal with flooding in several districts of the city switched into first gear. Over ...

As much of the country grapples with crippling floods, a comprehensive report on global climate change released yesterday predicts the situation could be poised to get even worse. According to the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as the planet grows warmer, cyclones making ...

TBONG KHUM DISTRICT, Kompong Cham province – From November to May, the Mekong River is quiet. So is life for the hundreds of thousands of people who live along its banks, which in Cambodia forms a 155,000 square km basin covering six provinces and Phnom ...

More than 100 sand-pumping systems and 40 boats have been impounded by the Kandal provincial Department of Water Resources and Meteorology in order to prevent riverbank collapse as water levels continue to rise. Chun Penglong, the provincial department director, told the Post yesterday that navy police and the ...

Two more people died in Kompong Cham province on Monday as a result of flooding that has claimed at least 30 victims since heavy rains spawned by tropical storms over the past two weeks caused the Mekong to break its banks and inundate thousands of ...

The government’s National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) fails to meet regularly and is void of an annual budget to cover its operations while most of its staff members are totally unaware of their job description, according to a report released in March and funded ...

Two monks living a remote pagoda in Kampong Speu province’s Oral district said yesterday that a shot had been fired at their living quarters last Tuesday in what they suspected was a threat motivated by their conservation efforts and participation in an opposition rally. Venerables Sam ...

Though authorities have called on residents to move to higher ground, those in some of the worst flooded areas of Cambodia said yesterday that they had neither the means nor the ability to do so. Instead, they said, they will remain in their rapidly flooding ...

Cambodia’s only U.N.-backed carbon trading scheme is still nowhere near making any money for communities and logging in the area continues to threaten the very forests supposed to generate tens of millions of dollars over the next 30 years, community representatives and officials in charge ...

Phnom Penh will face flooding in certain areas in the coming days as the level of the Mekong River surpasses emergency level, while heavy rainfall from tropical storm Wutip, which made landfall in Laos from the South China Sea on Friday, prompted the government to ...

The government’s latest five-year strategy calls for a complete halt to economic land concessions (ELCs) and an inquiry into those still in the pipeline. But the plan has drawn scepticism from conservationists and rights groups, who pointed out that loopholes have been liberally applied after the ...

The death toll caused by severe flooding along the Mekong River increased by eight yesterday, bringing the total number of deaths over the past two weeks to more than 20, including 11 children, an official said. Keo Vy, deputy chief of the information department at the ...

A community forest patrol of locals yesterday confiscated a large haul of illegally logged luxury wood that was being transported to the Vietnamese border in Mondolkiri province, local officials said. Commune police chief Pech Sotheary said the case has been referred to provincial forestry administration ...

PHNOM PENH, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) — Floods have killed at least 20 Cambodian people, including 11 children in the last two weeks, a disaster control official said Thursday. Keo Vy, chief of the Cabinet of the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM), said nearly 5,000 families ...

Thousands of families continue to be affected by relentless flooding caused by heavy rains and the opening of dams in neighboring Thailand and Vietnam, causing a surge in the Mekong River in Cambodia that has inundated communities along its banks. The floods have claimed at least ...