Transporting food aid to flooded areas in Laos after the dam collapse (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The government of Thailand on July30 called on all Thai people to donate cash or relief items to survivors of the dam collapsein Attapeu province, southern Laos, which occurred last week.
The country’s Ministry of Interior has instructed all 76provinces to set updonation centers to receive cash or material donations which will be sent toAttapeu where the Sepien-Senamnoi hydropower dam burst.
Theministry urged people to donate goods of good quality and will not break ordamage during the delivery process, saying that the shipments of the donatedgoods will continue until the flooding situation in Laos improves.
Meanwhile,Thai company Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding Pcl, one of the damconstructors, said in a statement that it had given an initial assistance of1.3 billion LAK (154,000 USD) to Laos.
TheElectricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) also provided relief forabout 3,000 Lao villagers displaced by the disaster. These items included 500bottles of clean water, 500 survival kits and 2 million THB (59,000 USD) incash.
On July 25, Thai PrimeMinister General Prayut Chan-o-cha met with Lao Ambassador Seng Soukhathivong todonate 5 million THB (147,000 USD) for the Lao victims while a total of 1.4million THB donated by Thai firms and people in Laos has been also sent to theLao Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare.
The Sepien-Senamnoi hydropower dam collapsed at 8:00pm onJuly 23, causing massive flooding which completely isolated six villages inSanamxay district of Attapeu province.
Some 587 families with 3,060 people were reportedly made homeless, while morethan 100 people were still unaccounted for.
The 410 MW capacity hydropower plant is being constructed by theSepien-Senamnoi Power Company (PNPC), which is a joint-venture of SKEngineering and Construction (SK E&C) and Korea Western Power (KOWEPO) fromthe Republic of Korea, Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding (RATCH) fromThailand, and Lao Holding State Enterprise (LHSE).
Construction of the project, which is estimated to cost 1.02 billion USD, beganin February 2013 and commercial operations were expected to begin thisyear.–VNA
VNA
