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HONG KONG – Hundreds of people were lost on Tuesday after a billion-dollar hydropower that was under construction in Laos collapsed, killing several people and displacing more than 6,600 others, a state news agency said.
KPL, the Official Lao news agency, reported that the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower dam collapsed at 8 pm on Monday, releasing five billion cubic meters of water and sweeping away homes in the southern province of Attapeu, which lies along the country's border with Vietnam and Cambodia. The agency did not give an exact death toll.
Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith of Laos later suspended on a plenitude of a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of the United States. Laos is a landlocked authoritarian state and one of the poorest countries in Asia.
The 410-megawatt dam was being built by the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Power Company, a joint venture between a state-owned Laotian company and several other companies, the KPL agency said. Construction on the dam began in 2013, KPL reported.
The power of the electricity industry is expected to be 1.879 gigawatt hours of electricity per year, the Xe-Pian Xe -Namnoy Power Company says on its website. Ninety percent of the electricity would be sold to neighboring Thailand, and the other 10 percent within Laos, the company said.
The phone lines of the company's two offices in Laos were busy on Tuesday or unanswered.
This paper is about to be diverted from three rivers – the Houay Makchanh, the Xe-Namnoy and the Xe-Pian – in the southern Laotian province of Champasack. The Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Power Company says that it would be discharged into the Kong River before it flows into the Mekong.
Hydropower is a major source of energy in Laos elsewhere in Southeast Asia. But they are also controversial, in part because they often displace rural poor and cause severe impacts on fisheries and watersheds.
Last year, Radio Free Asia news service, funded by the United States Government, reported that more than 100 families in three villages near the dam were facing forced eviction. RFA quoted an unidentified resident as saying that villagers did not want to move to the Laotian government had offered them compensation, which they said was not suitable for farming.
" In addition, families have found that the shallow soil around their homes is growing, fruits or staple crops, and consistently attesting to going hungry, "the letter said.
For years, one of the most controversial hydropower projects was the Xayaburi dam, on the Mekong River in northern Laos.
Thailand is scheduled to buy nearly all of the Xayaburi dam's electricity, and the Laotian government announced in 2012 that it would go
But scientists have long been worried that the Xayaburi would have spawning patterns and lead to the extinction of many species of fish, a main source of protein for millions of people along the Mekong. They also worry that it would embolden them with other projects along the river, which flows from Laos into Cambodia and Vietnam.
The joint venture behind the collapsed collapse of one company from Thailand – Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding – and two from South Korea: SK E & C and Korea Western Power Company.
SK E & C is an affiliate of SK Group, one of South Korea's largest conglomerates business. SK E & C has built power plants at home and abroad.
Korea Western Power Company runs a network of power plants in South Korea that burn coal, oil and liquid natural gas to generate power. It has also helped build and operate power plants in India, Indonesia and other countries. The company has said it is negotiating a contract to build and operate another hydroelectric power dam in Laos, the United States said on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Korea Western Power said by telephone that its role in the consortium behind the Laos was able to operate and manage the power plant after it was completed. The spokesperson, who had the contribution of the author, said that the company had not been involved in the construction of
Choe Sang-Hun, reporting from Seoul, South Korea.
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