Death toll reaches 1,000 in SE. Asia floods
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Xinhua, November 11, 2011
Flooding in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and other Southeastern Asian countries has taken the lives of nearly 1,000 people since the crisis began four months ago, a UN spokesman said Thursday.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs ( UNOCHA) reported that the situation in many areas of Southeast Asia "remains dire," UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters in New York at a daily news briefing.
Torrential rains and overflowing rivers have affected an estimated 9 million people, he said.
In Thailand, at total of 529 people were confirmed dead and two others missing in the worst floods in more than five decades, the Thai Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department said on Wednesday.
Damage to property and asset from the floods that have inundated the upper part of the country for almost three months ranges between 23 billion and 33 billion U.S. dollars, according to the latest estimate by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce.
Up to 300,000 people in Thailand will be unemployed because of business disruption and as many as 700,000 temporarily jobless, reports said.
In Vietnam, at least 22 people were killed by continual heavy rains in the recent days causing large-scale floods, the local Storm and Flood Control Center said on Wednesday.
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