Comments | ontd_political: Update on the flooding in Southeast Asia.

rex_dart in ontd_political

Update on the flooding in Southeast Asia.

Oct 14, 2011 07:57

Cambodia cancels festival as flood death toll risesPHNOM PENH - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday cancelled the nation's biggest annual festival as he announced that the death toll from the worst flooding in over a decade had risen to 247 ( Read more... )

thailand, cambodia, disasters

Comments 14

iolarah October 14 2011, 13:33:26 UTC

Scary stuff. I wonder if Doctors Without Borders are taking specific donations? They have in the past, if I remember right.

astridmyrna October 14 2011, 15:11:02 UTC

They do if you mark them, they just prefer unmarked donations.

astridmyrna October 14 2011, 15:13:37 UTC

This is terrible. As mentioned before, DWB or MSF is a good medical charity to donate too, and they do accept marked donations, but would prefer unmarked. I don't really trust the Red Cross, though.

PHNOM PENH - Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday cancelled the nation's biggest annual festival as he announced that the death toll from the worst flooding in over a decade had risen to 247.

The funds needed to put on the popular Water Festival

........

brewsternorth October 14 2011, 16:58:28 UTC

...I'm guessing that's in years when water = rice = money & food, rather than = flooding.

Unmarked is probably a better call anyway - you have to have a little faith in MSF to spread the wealth around where it's most needed both in the short and the long term.

chaya October 14 2011, 15:20:17 UTC

Would it be appropriate to have a thread requesting suggestions for good places to donate/microlend? I have been using Kiva, am aware it's not completely direct, but would be happier with a place that doesn't waste so much time finding stories and pictures. I'd buy a well somewhere, or put money towards one.

danyjoncew October 14 2011, 18:36:30 UTC

Oh my... and I hadn't even heard about it so far (fuck you, Brazilian media). Damn, it's amazing how much we really depend on logistics and efficient management of crisis nowadays and with everything that comes with Climate Change... IDK it's just scary to know that most countries are not prepared.

lastrega October 15 2011, 02:03:55 UTC

There's an article and a really good set of photos of the flooding in Siem Reap here. I was there in March and was really struck by how fragile the housing and infrastructure are for most of the people.

( ... )

romp October 15 2011, 06:37:35 UTC

Oh shit. Nothing like a photo to make it real.

rex_dart October 15 2011, 10:35:53 UTC

Thanks for sharing this. Looking around the town now, the flooding is bad, but it's nothing like it was last week or the week before that. It's hard to believe it's the same town, really; everything that's not flooded now is cleaned up and looking pristine. You'd never know it was that bad last week, because people just picked up and went on with things ( ... )

lastrega October 15 2011, 10:53:39 UTC

One thing you learn very quickly about Cambodia - life goes on.

The temples flood quite easily, at least some of them. When I was there in March we had a couple of very bad storms (like 3 people died from lightning strikes) and there was a bit of flash flooding just from a couple of 3 hour storms. There was quite a lot of water out at Neak Prean and Banteay Srei, and the archeological digs out at East Mebon were pumping water out.

It's a great place though, isn't it? Except for the cops. If a cop tries to chat to you out at the temples, maybe starts to show you around, bail fast. "Off duty" cops make extra dollars ripping off tourists.

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