Hundreds missing in dam collapse

Rescue efforts under way after water swept away houses

BANGKOK - A hydroelectric dam collapsed in southeastern Laos, leaving an unknown number of people dead and hundreds missing, state media said on Tuesday.

Rescue efforts were under way as top government officials rushed to the site and public appeals were launched for aid.

The official Lao news agency KPL said the Xepian-Xe Nam Noy hydropower dam in Attapeu province collapsed at 8 pm on Monday, releasing large amounts of water that swept away houses and made more than 6,600 people homeless.

Laos is landlocked and aims to become the "battery of Asia" by selling power to its neighbors through a series of hydropower dams.

The $1.2 billion dam was constructed by a joint venture formed in 2012 led by South Korean companies, with Thai and Lao partners. The project was still under construction, KPL reported. It described the portion that collapsed as a "saddle dam", which is an auxiliary dam used to hold water beyond what is held by the main dam.

Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith has suspended government meetings and led Cabinet members to monitor rescue and relief efforts in one of the affected areas, KPL reported.

Many areas of Laos have recently been hit by floods from heavy seasonal rains.

Laos is traversed by a vast network of rivers and there are several dams being built or are planned in the impoverished and landlocked country, which exports most of its hydropower energy to neighboring countries like Thailand.

Call for aid

Several houses in the southern part of the district were also swept away, KPL said, and officials in the province put out a call for relief aid for flood victims.

The dam was built to divert the Houay Makchanh, Xe-Namnoy and Xe-Pian rivers into reservoirs that feed into a 410-megawatt power plant designed to generate 1,879 gigawatts of power a year, with 90 percent of the power being exported to Thailand and the remaining 10 percent used locally.

The project is a 27-year concession and was due to begin operating in 2019, a year later than originally planned.

The project is on a volcanic plateau divided by a river gorge and the catchment area accounts for 17 percent of the Mekong river's annual flow.

According to assessment documents, about 30 villages were affected by the project with more than 2,000 people in eight villages resettled. Roughly 10,000 people live in the affected area, with most belonging to ethnic minorities.

Officials have brought boats to help evacuate people, as water levels rose after the collapse, ABC Laos news reported.

The project was supposed to be a cash cow for SK Engineering & Construction for years. The company is part of the SK Group, one of South Korea's top three conglomerates.

"We are running an emergency team and planning to help evacuate and rescue residents in villages near the dam," a SK Engineering & Construction spokesman told Reuters by telephone.

Yonhap quoted an unidentified SK E&C official as saying that rain in the area was three times more than the usual amount, and that one of five auxiliary dams had overflowed.

Afp - Ap - Reuters

(China Daily 07/25/2018 page11)