Floods affect four million in SE Asia

Floods affect four million in SE Asia

PHNOM PENH (AFP): More than four million people are now affected by the worst floods in a generation sweeping down the Mekong River basin, the heart of mainland Southeast Asia's rice bowl, officials and international aid workers said on Tuesday.

Many flooded areas in southern Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam could not be reached to deliver emergency relief, according to the International Red Cross which has begun issuing lifebelts as a last resort to residents in the Mekong delta.

"We are talking about the highest floods in a generation right down the Mekong," Peter Walker, Southeast Asia chief for the International Federation of the Red cross and Red Crescent, told AFP on a flood-inspection stop-over in Cambodia.

"The total level is starting to reach some of the peaks of the 1960s," he added.

Walker said more than four million people may be affected by the flooding brought on by early monsoon rains.

"It is very difficult to estimate. Almost by definition, the worst hit areas are impossible to get to. You can't get there by road, and small boats are not able to navigate the fast flowing waters," he said.

"I think we are going to be in crisis mode, certainly as far as the Mekong delta in Vietnam is concerned until the end of October. Further upstream in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand it may go down earlier."

The national committee for disaster management in Cambodia -- where the human tragedy caused by rising flood waters has been greatest -- reported three more deaths on Tuesday, bringing the total toll to 119.

The committee said in a report obtained by AFP that floods were now affecting 17 of the country's 23 provinces, raising the number of people affected to in excess of 1.4 million.

At least 30 people have died and 500,000 affected in neighboring Vietnam, according to local authorities. And in Thailand the interior ministry's civil defense department said in a statement as many as 1.9 million Thais had been affected by the floods, while 28 people had died.

Cambodia's Minister of Water Resources and Meteorology, Lim Kean Hor, said on Tuesday that Phnom Penh was in regular contact with authorities in neighboring Vietnam, Thailand and Laos.

"We are in regular contact over the flood situation. In Laos there is less rain, so we expect the water flowing (down the Mekong River) to Phnom Penh to lessen," he said. But Walker said less rainfall in Laos and northern Cambodia would not translate into flood relief further downstream.

"The flood levels have dropped substantially in northern Cambodia and Laos. That won't be translated into a drop in Phnom Penh and the Mekong delta as there is not enough slope and the water is backing up," he said.

"In the Mekong delta about half a million people are literally camping out on dykes which may collapse. We are starting to distribute thousands of lifebelts. The nearest land is about two kilometers away."

A report by the Cambodian disaster management committee said on Tuesday levels in the Mekong past the Cambodian capital were edging up again after remaining static for 24 hours.

Officials in Vietnam have described the flooding in the Mekong delta, where most major roads have been cut and vast swathes of rice crops destroyed, as the worst in 40 years.

The International Red Cross has reported heavy flooding in Laos.

"Laos is experiencing wide-spread flooding in its major rice producing areas of the central and southern lowlands, some of which are now facing food shortages," a recent report said.

Red Cross officials said 20,000 families were affected there, a total of about 120,000 people. They said that although relief efforts region-wide were hampered by access problems, aid distribution was going smoothly.

"The biggest problem is one of access to some of the more isolated regions," said Seija Tyrninoksa, head of the Cambodia office of the International Federation of Red cross and Red Crescent.

"The situation in Cambodia and Vietnam are a little bit different. In Vietnam people are really displaced, they are living on dykes. In Cambodia many affected people are staying in their houses."