"In November 2025, a massive storm rolled across the lower Mekong River delta, dumping multiple inches of rain onto the wide, flat river plain that covers much of Cambodia. The river rose and rose. The force of the water churned up mud from the river bottom. The muddy water flowed downstream and rushed into the many farming and fishing towns that line the Mekong's banks."
"Last year, she says, the water was higher than she had ever seen it. It washed away crops and left a thick layer of mud on everything in its path: vehicles, buildings and fields. But the damage from the flood could have been much worse. When the water arrived, Chhum and all her neighbors were gone, along with their cows and chickens. There were no fatalities in her community. And when the water receded, residents went back to normal life almost immediately."
""The things we do here during a flood, they save lives," says Vy Sievmeng, the officer in charge for the disaster management committee in Cambodia's Tbong Khmum province, which is one of the most flood-prone areas in the country. "In the past, a lot of people died and a lot of livestock drowned when there were big floods," he says, but that no longer happens."
In November 2025, a massive storm drenched Cambodia's lower Mekong delta, causing the river to rise and churn up mud that flooded farming and fishing towns. Elevated homes on concrete pillars and organized community evacuations removed people and livestock before waters arrived, preventing fatalities in Roka Thom despite washed-away crops and mud-covered vehicles, buildings, and fields. Local disaster committees credit preparedness practices with saving lives and preventing livestock losses. Cambodia's effective early-warning measures contrast with many vulnerable nations, where only about half have functioning warning systems and disaster mortality rates are far higher without robust weather warnings.
Read at www.npr.org
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