Is Chinese money drowning Sihanoukville, Cambodia? Floods blamed on rapid pace of development
- The coastal city has become a focal point for investment from China, but the pace of development has outpaced essential town planning
- When floods caused extensive damage last month it raised safety concerns, and worries that things are only going to get worse
Maggie Eno and her Cambodian staff wade through thigh-high murky water as they assess the devastating damage at their headquarters. Destruction surrounds them as they start the huge task of clearing up in the wake of unprecedented flooding that left Cambodian coastal city Sihanoukville under water.
“Our building has been here for 11 years and we’ve never seen flooding like this,” says Eno, co-director of M’lop Tapang, a non-profit organisation that works with thousands of vulnerable children and adults in the province. “People here are worried and frustrated. It’s a very dangerous situation.”
The floods that battered Cambodia’s southern coast last month saw parts of M’lop Tapang’s headquarters – home to its education centre and clinic – engulfed by two metres of water. Elsewhere in the once sleepy seaside city, thousands of homes and livelihoods were destroyed by the heavy rains that transformed roads into perilous, fast-flowing rivers.
Two construction workers were killed when a fence collapsed and another man died after a brick factory wall collapsed during the torrential rains. A total of 1,736 families were affected, 937 houses left waterlogged and 456 people evacuated, according to Sihanoukville provincial officials.
While Sihanoukville is no stranger to flash flooding – the coastal city endures a five-month monsoon season during which it is battered by rain – residents say they have never witnessed water levels like this.
Tha Sok Lay, 38, a restaurant owner at Otres beach, said within one hour the water was more than one metre high. Tha Sok Lay and her staff fled the restaurant for high land, watching the business being ravaged by the rapidly rising waters. “The flood came so fast,” she recalls. “It’s never happened like this in the past. No-one was ready for it, so we didn’t know how to prepare for the flooding or try to prevent damage.”
