Three people were killed and several others injured when they were struck by lightning while visiting Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple complex.
They had been seeking shelter around the main temple of the UNESCO site when the lightning struck late on Friday afternoon.
Video posted on social media showed two ambulances arriving in the aftermath and onlookers and site officials carrying out some injured people and helping others out on foot. Other images showed multiple people being treated in the hospital.
Photo: AP
The day after the incident, Cambodian Minister of Tourism Hout Hak issued a statement telling people to take down online posts about it, saying the spreading of “negative information” could harm the tourism sector.
Authorities have released no information about the incident, but an official yesterday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed to the Associated Press that three Cambodians were killed in the lightning strike.
The Cambodian Red Cross also posted an update saying it had delivered care packages to the families of two of the victims, a 34-year-old man and a 52-year-old woman. The Red Cross refused to comment further by phone.
A spokesman for the Angkor Wat site did not respond to requests for comment, nor did a regional health official.
Cambodia’s government under Prime Minister Hun Manet keeps a tight grip on information, and has been accused by rights groups of using the court system to prosecute critics and political opponents.
Hun Manet in 2023 succeeded his father, Hun Sen, who was widely criticized for the suppression of freedom of speech during his nearly four decades of autocratic rule.
Angkor Wat is Cambodia’s best-known tourist attraction, attracting about 2.5 million visitors annually, and is even featured on the country’s flag.
UNESCO calls the site, which sprawls across about 400km2 and contains the ruins of Khmer empire capitals from the 9th to the 15th centuries, one of the most important archeological sites in Southeast Asia.
Cambodia has been developing the area to attract more visitors, including opening a new US$1.1 billion Chinese-funded airport in nearby Siem Reap.
However, its move to relocate about 10,000 families squatting in the Angkor Wat area to a new settlement has drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups, and UNESCO itself has expressed concern.
Cambodian authorities have said the families were being voluntarily relocated, but Amnesty International and others have questioned how voluntary the relocations actually have been.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
RSS