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The bodies of 26 people were found in Laos, where the rupture of a hydroelectric dam made at least 131 missing and several villages were flooded in the south of the country
"131 missing", said Prime Minister Thonglun Sisulith. , in a first official report after the disaster. The official news agency had so far mentioned "hundreds of missing". The isolation of the area by the rains also complicates the rescue operations
At least eight villages of Attapeu were partially submerged by the 5 billion cubic meters of water released the collapse of a section of a network of tanks under construction on the rivers Xe Pian and Xe Namnoy.
The Thai consul in Laos, Chana Miencharoen, who visited the crash site, said Wednesday that 26 bodies had been recovered. "Seventeen others were injured and taken to the hospital," he told AFP. A few hours earlier, he had said that they still could not estimate the number of missing and that the water was reaching the roofs of the houses
Boats. Dozens of people from the province of Attapeu, Laos, are evacuated in the middle of flood after the rupture of a dam. / AFP
Governor Bounhom Phommasane, of Sanamxay District, Attapeu, told the official media that 2,851 people were saved this Wednesday morning and that there were still more than 3,000 who were were waiting for help.
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The KPL News Agency has published this document. Wednesday a balance of "hundreds of people" has disappeared, only 50 in the village of Ban Mai. The disaster has occurred in the south of the country, near the borders with Cambodia and Vietnam.
Refuges. The residents of Paksong City, Laos, were taken to makeshift shelters. / AFP
Images from local media show people on rooftops waiting for rescuers. Others tried to leave the area to save themselves from floods
About 750 people managed to take refuge in a neighboring province tens of kilometers away from the disaster, according to witnesses. According to the Consul of Thailand, more than 6,000 people are affected
Doubts and criticisms for security measures
In the country they ask if the companies in charge of the construction of the dam have taken sufficient security measures and some The locals say that they were warned with little time of the disaster.
"It happened very quickly, we did not have much time to prepare ," said AFP Joo Hinla, who lives in the city. 39, one of the most affected villages. Ban Hin Lath, and still has not heard of four members of his family
One of the Korean operators of the project said that since Friday, after the torrential rains of the monsoon, "eleven centimeters of sinking in the center from the dam. "
Underwater. The rescue teams have already recovered more than 20 bodies under the water, following the violent floods caused by the rupture of a dam in Laos. / AFP
One of his Korean colleagues reports that "the top of the dam" was dragged Sunday at 9:00 pm (local time), nearly 24 hours before the total collapse of the structure that dumped 500 million Sunday, "we immediately alerted the authorities and started evacuating the neighboring villages," said one of the Korean companies
Workers were sent to the site but the necessary attempts to repair were hampered .
The disaster "reveals the inadequacy of warning systems" and "raises important questions about the safety of dams in Laos", a country struck by the monsoon each year, has he lamented. Maureen Harris, specialist in Laos dams for the International Rivers Organization
Relief operations have been complicated by weather conditions. And the disaster area is very isolated, it can only be accessed by helicopter or boat.
The collapsed structure, called Saddle Dam D, is part of a network of several hydroelectric dams. This project of more than one billion dollars involves companies from Laos, Thailand and South Korea, grouped into Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy Power Company (PNPC).
The dam plans to begin the distribution of electricity energy in 2019, and 90% would be exported to neighboring Thailand . The rest would be distributed on the local network.
Located in the heart of the Indochinese peninsula, this small rural and mountainous state wants to become the source of energy of South-East Asia.
According to the International Hydropower Association (IHA), there are more than 50 hydropower projects in Laos and several environmental organizations have warned of the impact of these dams on the Mekong River, its flora and its fauna, as well as the rural populations
Source: AFP EFE
