Floods and storms leave 600,000 people homeless

Floods and storms leave 600,000 people homeless

HANOI (AP): Rescue workers distributed noodles, drinking water
and mosquito nets on Thursday to people stranded by unprecedented
floods that have left about 600,000 people homeless in Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos.

Officials said at least 88 people have died in Cambodia and
eight in Vietnam in the floods and tropical storms since July.

In Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen warned merchants on
Thursday against profiteering from the floods by increasing
prices.

"When newspapers write stories to scare the people, it helps
merchants sell goods at higher prices," he said while touring the
Lvea Em district, about 40 kilometers from the capital.
He said the level of Mekong river in the capital, Phnom Penh, is
higher than anytime in the past 70 years.

"I have participated to stop the killing fields, the genocide
of Pol Pot ... but it is impossible for me to stop the natural
disaster," Hun Sen told reporters.

The water level at the meeting point of Mekong and two other
rivers in Phnom Penh touched 11.12 meters (36.69 feet) on
Wednesday and is expected to reach 11.20 meters on Friday.
Officials say Phnom Penh could get flooded if the level reaches
11.50 meters.

Peou Samy, the secretary-general of the National Committee for
Disaster Relief, said river dikes around Phnom Penh have been
strengthened and the capital is not in danger.

In Vietnam, where the Mekong flows into a delta after passing
through Cambodia, more than 110,000 homes have been flooded, Dang
Ngoc Loi, an official in the Dong Thap province, said.

He said more than 30 rescue teams are distributing food,
noodles, drinking water, clothes and mosquito nets to more than
4,000 families.

State television showed thousands of houses flooded in Dong
Thap and Long An provinces bordering Cambodia after the mighty
Mekong overflowed its banks, turning vast areas of surrounding
rice fields into huge lakes.

Rescuers, including soldiers and naval personnel, used boats
to pick up stranded villagers from houses built on stilts.
In Geneva, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent appealed for $1.13
million in international aid to help some 600,000 people left
without homes or land by the floods in the three countries.

About $904,000 would be needed to help feed and shelter people
in Cambodia alone, the International Federation of Red Cross and
Red Crescent Societies said in a statement.

It said unusually widespread monsoon floods also are affecting
major rice-producing areas of central and southern Laos where at
least four provinces have been badly affected and face food
shortages.

Vietnamese officials said the two tributaries of the Mekong
River were approaching 5.11 meters height, the devastating record
level of 1961. They now stands at five meters.

Vo Dinh Vinh of the Vietnam Red Cross said his group has given
out 200 million dong ($14,000) in aid for the victims of early
flooding in July and another 180 million dong ($12,000) this
month.

Dong Thap deputy governor Truong Ngoc Han said 780 million
dong ($55,000) worth of relief supplies donated by local
residents and neighboring provinces have been distributed.

Seasonal flooding hit southern Vietnam early this year,
engulfing the country's rice bowl since July. But only a tiny
fraction of rice crops were destroyed -- less than 2 percent of
the 985,000 hectares planted -- because of early harvests.

The country's long coastline is vulnerable to annual bouts of
monsoons and floods. More than 700 people were killed in two
major back-to-back floods that hit the central region late last
year.