Cambodia and Thailand: World Vision responds after devastating floods affect millions

13 Oct 2011
Source: World Vision East Asia Communications

Victims of massive widespread flooding in Cambodia and Thailand have begun receiving aid from World Vision with the agency committed to meeting the long-term recovery needs of disasters.

Heavy rains have, so far, killed 269 people in Thailand and over 200 in Cambodia, while affecting millions. A large percentage of those who have died are children.

In Cambodia, World Vision’s initial response has included the distribution of food and hygiene kits to 1,500 families, as well as alerting communities to the health and child protection risks related to flooding. Respiratory diseases and diarrhoea commonly impact those living in flood zones.

The country’s National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) also reported that 1,132 schools had been affected preventing children from returning to school. Many classrooms are also doubling up as evacuation centres.

“Children are especially impacted as many are confined to their homes and becoming vulnerable to hunger as household food supplies dwindle and the situation worsens,” said Esther Halim, National Director of World Vision Cambodia. World Vision Cambodia says it needs more than USD 500,000 to fund its relief efforts.

Food prices are likely to rise as over 300,000 hectares of the country’s rice fields have been inundated with over 100,000 hectares completely destroyed.

“As the full impact of these devastating floods are realised, a long road to recovery lies ahead for children and their families in affected communities,” said Ms Halim.

Meanwhile in Thailand, residents of the north-eastern and central plains were bracing for further flooding as authorities prepared to release water from overflowing dams. The floods, which have already affected 58 of Thailand’s 77 provinces, have been declared the worst in over 50 years.

The Thai government has already initiated a comprehensive response, deploying some 10,000 soldiers, 500 road vehicles, 100 boats, aircraft and mobile kitchens.

World Vision is primarily responding in its programme areas where government aid has yet to reach residents. In Uthaithani province, World Vision distributed more than 1,000 survival kits, comprising rice, drinking water, tinned fish, tinned pickles and bottled juice. In Chantaburi province, southeast of Bangkok, blanket and mosquito nets were distributed.

World Vision's Weerapong Hasitavej oversees community programmes in Bangkok. He said residents in central Thailand and around Bangkok, as well as in the city itself, had been rushing to lay millions of sandbags and stocking up on basic foodstuffs.

“Many more people are affected than in the 2004 tsunami. With the tsunami, recovery and rehabilitation could start immediately. But with this disaster, two and a half million people have been waiting, for weeks, for water to recede to move back into their homes, to rebuild their lives and find some level on normality.”

“People tell me that they are afraid, the water creeps in at night, they don’t sleep,” Weerapong said. “They watch the destruction in other parts of the country, and they wait.”

“We are working closely with local authorities to ensure the emergency response reaches the worst affected as soon as possible,” said Chitra Thumborisuth, National Director of the World Vision Foundation of Thailand.

World Vision will continue to monitor the situation and plans to support affected families in the rehabilitation process once the floodwaters have receded.