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Title: UN agency blames Mekong floods on deforestation

Source: Copyright 2000, Reuters

Date: September 25, 2000

BANGKOK - A United Nations agency said on Friday deforestation was a

major cause of the floods that have devastated Indochina and the

Mekong delta in the last month.

The UN's Economic & Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

(ESCAP) said in a statement forests in most Asian countries had been

reduced to about 25 percent of land area in 1995 from 70 percent in

1945.

Other causes of the floods were a reduction in river channels and

drainage, reclamation of flood plains and wetlands and a rapid

expansion of urban and residential areas, ESCAP said.

Heavy rain in the past month across Indochina and the Mekong delta

have killed hundreds of people and forced more than a million others

from their homes in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

Water levels in Vietnam's Mekong Delta appeared to be stabilising on

Friday but the toll in the region's worst floods in decades rose to

at least 66, mostly children.

The Laotian Ministry of Agriculture said the flooding, the worst in

the country since 1978, had affected 18,423 families and damaged

48,724 hectares (120,395 acres) of farmland nationwide.

Flood waters that have caused misery in northern and northeastern

Thailand have begun to spill into the country's central plains,

reaching Ayutthaya, just 76 km (47 miles) north of Bangkok, officials

said on Friday.

Concerns have been raised over the safety of the Ayutthaya World

Heritage site, comprising ancient palaces, ruins and temples, some of

which were damaged by floods in 1995.

A two-metre (6.6 feet) concrete flood wall was being built on the

banks of the Chao Phrya river to protect the historic city from

floods.

ESCAP said the intensity of flood disasters had increased in the

region during the past few years, causing increasingly serious social

and economic impact on the developing nations.

An ESCAP regional survey showed the floods in 1998 caused nearly

7,000 deaths, damaged more than six million houses, and destroyed

nearly 25 million hectares (61.8 million acres) of crops in

Bangladesh, China, India and Vietnam.

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