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SANAMXAY, Laos – Laos authorities ordered closer monitoring of hydropower facilities while they were investigating the reasons for the collapse of a dam in the south-east of the country. missing.
The floodwaters rising from the roofs slowly moved away on Thursday as the evacuees returned to the mud-soaked villages.
Farmer Kongvilay and his wife Thongla Inthavong returned after spending two nights in a shelter to find their house on stilts. washed at 50 meters (160 feet) in their rice field. The family hurriedly left the house as the water level rose to 2 meters (6 ½ feet) just an hour after the dam broke Monday night
"I'm afraid the same accident will happen again" said Thongla. while she and her husband were scratching the mud of their belongings. "But we can not live anywhere else.We have been here all our life."
In a report released Thursday, the Vientiane Times said the Ministry of Energy and Mines had ordered closer monitoring water levels in the reservoirs and conditions at the dam sites. He said the thousands of people trapped on the roofs and in the trees were saved Wednesday. Laotian Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith described the disaster as the worst in years in the poor country, with more than 6,000 displaced people after the auxiliary dam of a joint venture hydroelectric project gave way after rainy days torrential. if the collapse of the dam was caused by heavy rains or by inadequate construction standards. The South Korean company responsible for dam construction, SK Engineering & Construction, said it was also trying to determine why the dam had failed.
The Red Cross, the South Korean Government and other organizations pressed water purifiers. refuges filled with hundreds of displaced families evacuated from a no man's land half inundated with orange mud and debris.
Initially, state media reported that hundreds of people were missing and feared to die. Difficult communications and heavy rains, which hampered relief efforts, likely contributed to discrepancies in information about victims.
The exact circumstances of the collapse of the dam remain unclear and local authorities said they had formed a committee for According to the Vientiane Times, the dam began to fail Sunday, while Korea Western Power, another partner of the project, said the earth dam began to weaken on Friday.
SK Engineering sent its president and an emergency team to help with the rescue and repair effort. In a statement Thursday, he said that he would help build housing for displaced people.
"We will find the causes of the incident and take necessary action quickly," said the ministry in a statement released earlier this week. The partner of the dam project, the Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Co., said the joint venture sent experts to the region to investigate the situation and discuss with the authorities how to solve the problem
: A report from the Intergovernmental Commission of the Mekong River indicated that the storms caused a rise of 3 to 5 meters in water levels along the river last week
. hampering reconstruction efforts, and flood risks persisted in the mountainous region.
But a wave of dam construction along the Mekong River and its tributaries, including those affected by this disaster, has raised concerns. The $ 1.02 billion project involving several river basins in a remote corner of southeastern Laos is the first hydroelectric dam to be built by a South Korean company, and it is unclear how serious the damage would be . the overall plan. The dam was to come into service in 2019, with 90% of the energy produced in Thailand
Laos has dozens of hydroelectric projects under construction and plans to sell electricity to neighboring countries, representing today about a third of its International Rivers, a non-governmental group generally critical of these projects, said that the disaster has shown the need to improve the warning systems.
"With more than 70 hydropower projects currently being built, under construction and planned In the Lao People's Democratic Republic, most of them are owned and operated by private companies and the authorities must immediately examine how dams are planned, designed and managed, "said the group in a statement
. , South Korea, and Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report.
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