Saturday, July 09, 2011

More than 120 poisoned

Friday, 08 July 2011
Thet Sambath
The Phnom Penh Post

MORE than 120 villagers have now been poisoned after drinking water contaminated with herbicides which flowed into a fresh water creek in Kampot, a doctor said yesterday.

Nob Neb, chief of the disease and emergency building at Chhouk district referral hospital said yesterday another 37 villagers from Trapaing Phlaing commune had been admitted, with symptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting and dizziness.

Around 90 patients were admitted on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

“Their [condition] is not serious. They just got tired and dizzy”, Nob Neb said. “We have given them medicine tablets and injections”.


He said 70 of the 90 patients originally admitted to the hospital had already recovered and returned home.

Nob Synoun, deputy police chief of Chhouk district, said yesterday that local authorities’ first priority was to make sure people recovered before they sought out the culprit of the poisonings.

On Wednesday, officials reported that So Nguon Company had sprayed toxic herbicides to kill bamboo and long grasses at a farm adjacent to a creek which villages had long used for drinking water.

Heavy rains followed, officials said, allegedly washing the chemicals into the villagers’ water supply.

“We can’t take action with those responsible for this problem because we have no complaint from people,” Nob Synoun said yesterday. “Now we need to save people first. We will solve this problem later, following the law.”

So Nguon Company could not be reached for comment yesterday.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Silent Spring is coming to Cambodia.

Anonymous said...

THE SAME THING HAPPENED IN RATTANAK
KIRI, MONDOLKIRI, KOH KONG ETC...
IT'S ONLY A CONTINUATION OF THE KILLING FIELD PERPETRATED BY YUONS AND KHMERS ROUGES IN JAIL OR IN POWER. MORE OF THAT KIND WILL SURFACE IN THE FUTURE, READY FOR THEM?
SI ENG KRUY.

Anonymous said...

"Silent Spring is coming to Srok Khmer", Do you mean poisoning off the people to make more room for the invaders?

Anonymous said...

To 2:24AM

You read my mind. The water give life for dirt poor Cambodian people and because the water is free and they tend not to think twice about water pollution from industrial and manmade! The pesticide pollution will make its way to the creeks and rivers and eventually to the underground water and at the moment this is where most dirt poor Cambodian got their water supply from underground!


In Cambodia the water is everywhere but it is undrinkable!