LAOS: Questions Rise With Worst Floods in Decades
By Ounkeo Souksavanh*
VIENTIANE, Sep 9 (IPS) - When local people in Laos talk about floods, they always look back to 1966 -- the year the Mekong River burst its banks so fast that no one was prepared.
Based upon pictures from the time and stories told by residents who were there, the capital became a lake in a matter of days.
In August this year, these old pictures and stories came back to haunt Lao people when the Mekong River inundated Vientiane and other provinces.
Houses and farmlands were under water, residents were forced to use boats to evacuate their belongings and livestock. Floodwaters exceeded dangerous levels throughout much of central Laos.
The highest water level recorded in Vientiane was 13.68 metres on Aug. 14. That is beyond the 12.50-metre point, at which the authorities officially declare that flooding is dangerous.
At the back of many locals’ minds as they deal with the current floods, the worst since 1966, were questions about whether the dams built in the Mekong river upstream in China since the early nineties were behind the rising waters.
Kham Sisavanth, a 38-year-old Vientiane resident, said that even though there was no concrete evidence to support the accusation, many people believe China was behind the severity of the recent floods.
He raised the example of the medium-scale Nam Ngum dam in central Laos, the release of water from which in early August was blamed for flooding in several villages along the Ngum River.
"If a huge discharge is released due to opening the dams upstream, then countries downstream, including Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia will be seriously flooded," said Kham.
"I disagree with the dam construction upstream as it will affect peoples downstream, but it is difficult to prohibit China to do so because China is not member of Mekong River Commission (MRC) and we don’t have the power to bargain with them."
"I am worried we might face even worse floods over the next years," he added.
"The total storage capacity of the three dams, Manwan,
Dachaoshan and Jinghong, in China is 16,683 million cubic metres," Pienporn Deetes, a coordinator of the Chiang Mai-based Living River Siam told the Thai-based English-language daily ‘Bangkok Post’ on Aug. 17.
"This is enough to regulate water flow in the northern part of the Mekong River, including a large area in northern Thailand," she added.
But the Mekong River Commission (MRC), based in this city, says such speculation is without basis. "The current water levels are entirely the result of the meteorological and hydrology conditions and were not caused by the release of water from Chinese dams, as their storage volume was far too small to affect the flood hydrology of the Mekong," it told the Post.
In an Aug. 25 statement, the Commission said: "Preliminary
analysis of the available combined water storage volume behind the three hydropower dams that are operational or approaching completion on the Lancang-Mekong River and tributaries in China suggests this to be small compared to the volumes of natural runoff generated directly
by rainfall".
The combined active storage capacity of the Chinese dams, Manwan, Dachaoshan and Jinghong, is less than one cubic kilometre, only a small part of which could be released within the period that the floodwater accumulated," it added.
"Given that at Chiang Saen the flood peak on Aug. 12 showed an accumulated flood runoff volume for the month of 8.5 cubic kilometres, while at Vientiane on Aug. 15 the figure was 23 cu km, any release from these dams could not have been a s significant factor in
this natural flood event.
It also pointed to similarities with the September 1966 major floods, which occurred when tropical storm Phyllis poured massive amounts of rain on China’s south-western Yunnan province.
Still, environmentalists attribute the flooding in Laos and Thailand to the blasting of rapids in the section of the Mekong between northern Laos’ Bokeo province and Thailand’s Chiang Rai province to improve waterway for large-scale navigation along Mekong in 2004.
This has changed the waterway, causing floods and erosion for several kilometres along the bank in Thonpheung district in the north of Bokeo. Erosion in some cases has been so bad that some residents have resettled to other areas.
"Villages in the area blame waterway improvements to allow big ships to run from China and unload cargo at Chiang Saen port in (Thailand’s) Chiang Rai province for the erosion," Khaophone Phonechaleun, a radio reporter in Bokeo said.
For their part, the Lao authorities, keen to preserve good
relations with China, also pointed to similar factors stressed by MRC.
"Many days of heavy rain is the cause of the flooding," said Souvanny Phonevilay, Head of Weather Forecasting and Aeronautical Division, Department of Meteorology and Hydrology.
Souvanny said the rains were partly the result of tropical storm Kammuri storm that blew over northern Laos in early August.
The storm brought winds from the Gulf of Thailand and heavy rains, increasing the flow of water into the Mekong, which was already swollen as the result of heavier than usual rain earlier in the year.
Observers believe a reduction in forest coverage has also
contributed to the severity of the flooding. Based on statistics by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, forest coverage in Laos is now about 40 percent, down from 70 percent in the past.
"The reduction in forest means rainwater is not retained in the soil and instead runs down into rivers," said Souvanny.
According to Laos’ National Disaster Management Office, some 150,000 people have been affected by the flooding in seven provinces. Four people were killed in central province of Vientiane and one was swept away by water currents in Bokeo.
The government has estimated the cost of damage to roads and bridges due to the flooding at around 293 billion kip (300 million dollars). Flooding has also affected 65,000 hectares of agricultural production area, including 27,000 hectares of paddy field.
Sisavat Homdala, technical officer at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, told the Lao news agency in late August that Laos would face rice shortages due to flood damage to rice fields.
(*This story was written for the Imaging Our Mekong Programme coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific)
(END/2008)
Send your comments to the editor
|
What is RSS?
