Emergency Session Held Over Ongoing Flooding

Prime Minister Hun Sen called an urgent cabinet meeting on Monday, gathering senior officials and provincial leaders to deal with ongoing flooding that has killed at least 60 people and inundated tens of thousands of homes.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith told reporters outside the meeting at the Council of Ministers that the government was trying to ensure that famine did not follow the flooding, which have continued since August.

Provincial governors have been ordered to stay in the countryside to deal with the problem, he said, as efforts are being coordinated between local authorities and the Cambodian Red Cross.

Flooding has affected 90,000 families across 14 provinces, killing at least 34 children and destroying some 200 homes, the National Committee for Disaster Management said Monday.

Khieu Kanharith said that no foreign assistance was being sought currently, but he appealed for volunteers. Other priorities are to make sure rice and other agricultural production can begin in earnest when the water levels recede and that post-flooding diseases are mitigated.