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[justinm at ucr.edu]

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2008-0818 - Reuters - Death Toll Mounting as Rivers Overflow Across Southeast Asia

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/world/asia/18mekong.html

The New York Times

August 18, 2008
Death Toll Mounting as Rivers Overflow Across Southeast Asia
By SETH MYDANS

HANOI, Vietnam — Torrential rains and overflowing rivers have brought some of the worst flooding in decades to Vietnam and its neighbors in the past week, flooding cities and farmlands in five nations.

In northern Vietnam, at least 160 people have been reported killed, dozens missing and thousands driven from their homes. Hundreds of tourists were evacuated near the hill tribe resort area of Sa Pa.

“People in these remote areas live in the bottom of valleys, which is very dangerous,” said Marshall Silver, a flood expert with the United Nations Development Program in Hanoi. “The only place they can grow rice is on the table land at the bottom. When storms come in from a typhoon, flash flooding happens very quickly.”

Flooding has also hit parts of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos as well as Myanmar, where waters rose in the Irrawaddy Delta, which is still recovering from a cyclone that left 138,000 people dead or missing in May.

According to the official news media in Myanmar, the floods affected much of the country, including the main city, Yangon, as well as Mandalay in the center and the Karen and Mon States in the southeast.

In Vientiane, the capital of Laos, officials said the Mekong River had brought the worst flooding in memory, rising to nearly 45 feet above its lowest level in the dry season. The high water in Vientiane broke a record set in 1966 and overflowed a levee that was built after that flood.

Mudslides also cut the main road from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, an ancient city of temples and monasteries where the Mekong waters also rose.

In parts of northeastern Thailand, officials said the Mekong had reached its highest level in 30 years, inundating farmlands and forcing the evacuation of thousands of people in three provinces along the river, which divides Thailand from Laos.

Officials said the high water had been caused by heavy downpours in southern China, Laos and Thailand.

As the high waters of the Mekong moved downstream, Cambodia and eastern Thailand prepared for major floods and officials warned residents in some areas to move to higher ground along with their livestock.

In the southern Mekong Delta of Vietnam, where the 2,700-mile river flows into the sea, forecasters said that rising waters had reached a critical level two weeks earlier than last year and that worse flooding lay ahead.

In northern Vietnam, the government said floodwaters had peaked at close to their 1968 record levels. Military helicopters took instant noodles and other supplies to stranded residents and airlifted hundreds of foreign tourists and Vietnamese from Lao Cai, on the China border.

Several hundred train passengers en route to the popular tourist area, including about 50 foreign tourists, took refuge in hotels before being airlifted out, according to the Vietnamese media.

In the neighboring province of Yen Bai, according to official reports, at least 35 people were killed, many by landslides.

The government’s Central Steering Committee for Flood and Storm Control said in May that over the past three years, floods and storms had become stronger and more destructive. Last year’s floods were followed by a rare prolonged cold spell at the end of 2007. That was followed in turn by scorching weather and early storms in the first months of 2008, the committee said.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
3046 INTN
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu