Disasters and emergency response

If there is one place most ill-equipped for a mega hydropower dam holding back cascades of water, it might very well be along a fault line. Yet China’s Myitsone project is slated for such a quake-prone site not far from the Sagaing Fault. In addition to ...

The Metropolitan Waterworks Authority (MWA) has urged households in the capital and its vicinity to reserve at least 60 litres of drinking water for the duration of the drought season until May next year.  The reduction of Chao Phraya River water usage is due to the ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on 7 December called on lenders to go easy on farmers bedeviled by a fickle rainy season that has hurt production and incomes, though financial institutions quizzed yesterday had no plan yet in place to facilitate the request. This year’s powerful El Niño ...

Mrs Kanittha Napaworakul thought it would be interesting if she could invent equipment to solve the problem of power outages during natural disasters. “There were bad weather phenomena happening in several countries, killing lots of people, and it made me think of what I would ...

Amid warnings of fresh disaster beneath the lowering waste tips, Kachin State government officials and civil society are mobilising to protect local residents and demand accountability from the companies they blame for the death of more than 100 people. Rescuers have abandoned attempts to recover any ...

A fire broke out in a slum in Ho Chi Minh City on 1 December afternoon, burning out 13 houses but no injuries were reported.   The fire started at around 3:15 p.m. in the neighborhood near a small market in District 1’s Cau Ong Lanh Ward. The ...

A Team of German geologists have confirmed that Hakha, the capital of Chin State, is too dangerous to live in. The team has deemed most of the city at very high risk of landslides, which are often caused by heavy rain. The survey is the first ...

A Kachin  civil society group is urging relatives of those killed in a landslide near a Hpakant jade mine on 21 November to reject an offer of K600,000 compensation for each victim, and has reiterated threats to press charges against those involved in the mining ...

Villagers in Namai, central Laos, are unanimous in saying that the greatest threat facing Namai now is natural disaster – in the form of cyclones, storms, floods and drought. Over the past 10 years, say village leaders, they have seen record floods, droughts and landslides, ...

A pair of fires ripped through two Phnom Penh districts in less than 12 hours over 24 November evening and early 25 November morning, completely destroying 24 houses. According to Net Vuntha, Phnom Penh police deputy director in charge of fire and explosives, 15 of the destroyed houses ...