Straits Times 17 Aug 08;
Bangkok - Four people have been killed in flooding and landslides in Laos, where the Mekong River has hit its highest level in at least 100 years after several months of unusually heavy rain.
The government and people in the landlocked country have been rushing to complete a 2.5m-high wall of sandbags to stop the chocolate-brown waters from inundating the capital, Vientiane.
The Mekong, which flows 4,350km from the glaciers of Tibet to the rice-rich delta of southern Vietnam, hit 13.68m in Vientiane on Thursday, trouncing a high of 12.38m recorded in 1966, the worst floods in living memory.
In Vientiane, a levee was built along the river's northern bank after the 1966 flooding but has been overrun in places, causing flooding in parts of the city of 200,000, one resident said.
There was widespread flooding upstream, although the former royal capital of Luang Prabang escaped any damage to its ancient Buddhist pagodas.
Downstream, eastern Thailand and low-lying Cambodia, where the annual flooding of the Mekong is crucial to rice and fish production, are bracing themselves for major flooding as the water surge moves slowly south.
The high waters will ultimately flow down into Vietnam, where at least 130 people were killed and 36 went missing last week after the worst floods in decades due to the remnants of a tropical storm.
Reuters
