Cambodian flood toll tops 100
A Cambodian woman and her daughters sit on a raft made of banana trunks in floodwater at Kian Svay district in Kandal province on September 24, 2011. Photo/AFP
More than 100 Cambodians, nearly half of them children, have died in the country's worst flooding in a decade, a disaster official said Thursday.
Heavy rainfall, which has also caused the Mekong river to overflow, has killed at least 105 people, including 47 children, since mid-August, spokesman Keo Vy of the National Committee for Disaster Management told AFP.
Tens of thousands of hectares (acres) of rice paddies have been inundated and more than 17,000 families had to be evacuated to higher ground in 12 provinces across the country, he added.
"The damage is very serious this year," said Keo Vy, noting that it was surpassed only by the floods that occurred during the rainy season in 2000, when more than 340 people were killed.
Nearly 200 tourists, including foreigners, were airlifted from Cambodia's famed Angkor temple complex last week after a road to one of the ruins was cut off by flash floods.
In neighbouring Thailand, almost two months of severe flooding have left more than 170 people dead.
