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Destructive floods break banks of Mekong River

Torrential rains and overflowing rivers have brought some of the worst flooding in decades to Vietnam and its neighbors in the past week, flooding cities and farmland in five nations.

In northern Vietnam, at least 160 people have been reported killed, dozens are missing and thousands have been driven from their homes. Hundreds of tourists were evacuated near the hill tribe resort area of Sa Pa.

“People in these remote areas live in the bottom of valleys, which is very dangerous,” said Marshall Silver, a flood expert with the UN Development Program in Hanoi. “The only place they can grow rice is on the table land at the bottom. When storms come in from a typhoon, flash flooding happens very quickly.”

Flooding has also hit parts of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos as well as Myanmar, where waters rose in the Irrawaddy Delta, which is still recovering from a cyclone that left 138,000 people dead or missing in May.

The official news media in Myanmar said the floods affected much of the country, including the main city, Yangon, as well as Mandalay in the center and the Karen and Mon states in the southeast.

In Vientiane, the capital of Laos, officials said the Mekong River had brought the worst flooding in memory, rising to nearly 45 feet above its lowest level in the dry season. The high water in Vientiane broke a record set in 1966 and overflowed a levee that was built after that flood.

Mudslides also cut the main road from Vientiane to the ancient capital of Luang Prabang, a city of temples and monasteries where the Mekong waters also rose.

In parts of northeastern Thailand, officials said the Mekong had reached its highest level in 30 years, inundating farmlands and forcing the evacuation of thousands of people in along the river, which divides Thailand from Laos.

Officials said heavy downpours in southern China, Laos and Thailand caused the high waters in the Mekong.
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