Over 1 million displaced, with women and children hardest hit
Nirmal Ghosh Straits Times 12 Oct 11;
PHNOM PENH: Women and children are suffering the most in Cambodia, the government and relief agencies said, after the worst flooding in more than a decade.
At least 207 Cambodians have been killed, 1.2 million displaced from their homes and 13 per cent of the country's rice crop has been wiped out by the widespread flooding that has also forced Phnom Penh to slash growth estimates for the year.
Seventeen of Cambodia's 23 provinces have been badly hit as the Mekong River, swollen from heavy rain since the middle of August, has overflowed its banks in recent weeks.
With an estimated 160 bridges submerged and nearly 3,000km of roads damaged, the Cambodian government and aid agencies have been struggling to reach affected communities.
Displaced people are staying in makeshift tents and often drinking contaminated water. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) bulletin noted yesterday: 'Evacuation centres or safe places for people seeking shelter are becoming increasingly overcrowded.'
'Nearly 73 per cent of the people in the sites are women and children,' it added.
More than 1,100 schools and close to 100 hospitals have been destroyed, the government said.
The last time such massive flooding occurred was in 2000, when 347 people were killed and 3.5 million affected.
A team from the Singapore-based Mercy Relief agency, which last week rushed rice supplies and water filtration units to Cambodia, reported that in some flood-hit northern provinces, only rooftops were visible above the water.
'It's the scale of the floods that matters,' its chief executive Hassan Ahmad said over the phone.
Since Aug 13, more than 100,000ha of rice fields have been damaged and about 300,000ha are still under water, said Cambodia's National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM).
Mr Hassan, who toured the flood-hit provinces and returned to Singapore on Monday, said: 'A lot of the rice crop that they were anticipating to harvest in around two weeks is gone. Household rice stocks have also been lost. So families have lost their livelihoods.'
The price of rice has shot up by about US$100 (S$130) a tonne, he said - which makes things even worse for affected communities.
Ocha said: 'Immediate food assistance is required. Other major concerns include inadequate health-care services, while random health screening data shows the most prominent diseases to be generalised fever, diarrhoea, typhoid, skin problems, acute respiratory infection and malnutrition.'
Growth forecast cut
Unlike neighbouring Thailand with its superior resources, Cambodia's government has been stretched by the disaster and criticised for its slow and uncoordinated response. Because of the flooding, combined with uncertainty in the United States and European economies, the government has shaved 1 percentage point off its gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection for the year.
This year's GDP is now expected to be 6 per cent - a drop from 7 per cent. Flood damage could exceed US$100 million - although the final figure will likely be known only late next month when the full extent of the damage becomes clear.
There is concern that poor communities hit by floods and the loss of rice stocks and crops would not be able to recover without assistance.
'This is what the government and the local authorities have to worry about - the people's living standards,' NCDM vice-president Nhim Vanda told journalists at a press conference on Monday.
But there may be a silver lining, the Asian Development Bank's country director for Cambodia, Mr Putu M. Kamayana, said in a phone interview. 'The private sector is already moving to supply seeds to farmers, who, where the water is receding, are eager to plant again soon to take advantage of the nutrients deposited by the flood waters.'
