Some 13 people were confirmed dead while 118 remained missing after a dam collapsed, triggering flash flood in southern Laos last Monday, an officer from Lao People's Army said on Wednesday during a press conference held in Sanamxay District of Attapeu Province.
Two bodies of an adult and a child were found in mud on Tuesday and Wednesday, said Khamlieng Outhakaisone, Deputy Director General of the General Staff Department (GSD) of the Lao People's Army, and commander of the rescue operation.
He added that authorities also found the body of a 4 to 5-year-old child stuck deeply in mud on Wednesday and the newly found body was not concluded in the death toll yet as the body was yet to be retrieved.
As floods subsided, they no longer use boats as the main transport vehicle as before, and their focus these days are on the six most severely affected villages and paddy fields around them, he said.
Khamlieng emphasized the authorities will work until the last missing person is found and if they could not find them all inside Laos they would ask neighboring Cambodia's help.
The collapse of an under-construction saddle dam of the Xe Pian-Xe Nam Noy hydropower project, invested by South Korean, Thai and Lao companies, last Monday unleashed some 5 billion cubic meters of water to hit some 13 villages of Sanamxay district in southern Lao's Attapeu Province, among which 6 villages with 7,095 residents were "100 percent affected."
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