Laos ravaged by collapse

Hoi Kong : The bloated carcasses of pigs and cows float in the knee-high flood waters covering the Laos village of Hoi Kong, as mud-caked residents pick through the remnants of homes destroyed by a dam collapse that they had little time to flee. Monday night’s dam break inflicted an unprecedented catastrophe on Laos, a poor country with little capacity to manage remote, large-scale rescue operations.

Twenty-seven people are confirmed dead, with 131 still missing, after the Xe-Namnoy dam broke, sending a wall of water rushing across a large swathe of southern Laos. Details of the damage have trickled out slowly in a country whose Communist authorities tightly control information and do not welcome media attention. But with the waters receding, the scale of the disaster is revealing itself. Residents in Hoi Kong returned to their flooded homes on Thursday, wading past vehicles pushed onto their sides by rushing water, with thick red mud caking everything they once owned. 

“The people are in very bad condition,” a Vietnamese military doctor helping with the relief effort told AFP, requesting anonymity. “Really I don’t know how they will overcome this devastation. They have lost everything.” In crowded shelters across Attapeu province, survivors have recounted the terrifying moment water cascaded through their villages, saying they were given little warning of the impending disaster. It was Monday evening and many of those forewarned had only been given a few hours to evacuate. Others were told nothing, scrambling in the darkness to rooftops, trees, or escaping via boats to dry land. Many fled into the mountains seeking higher ground.