VIENTIANE, 22 October 2009 (IRIN) - The UN launched a flash appeal on 22 October for more than US$10 million after Typhoon Ketsana brought devastating floods to Laos, hitting some of the nation's poorest and most vulnerable people.
Typhoon Ketsana made landfall in Laos on 29 September after causing widespread flooding and hundreds of deaths in the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia.
The storm lashed Laos's remote southern provinces of Attapeu, Sekong, Saravan, Savannakhet, and Champassack, killing 17 people and affecting another 178,000, according to government figures.
Officials say the flooding was the some of the worst seen in recent years, and Onechanh Thammavong, the Minister of Labour and Social Welfare, said more than 27,000 households had been affected and 20,000ha of rice and crop fields damaged.
"The floods caused by Typhoon Ketsana have brought about extensive devastation to the Lao multi-ethnic people," Onechanh told diplomats at the launch.
Sonam Yangchen Rana, the UN Resident Coordinator for Laos, said the floods had affected some of the poorest and most remote districts in the country, which had already been food-insecure before the crisis.
"We are really talking about a very vulnerable situation, where we are told that over 50 percent of the children are underweight, [and] malnourished. And with the crisis, the impact is going to be much more severe," Yangchen Rana said.
"The situation is really quite serious, because we also want to make sure that the gains that we've made, particularly in these poorer districts and poorer provinces, and Lao PDR overall, are not lost at a critical juncture," she said.
The appeal is for $10,153,872, which will address the immediate humanitarian needs of about 178,000 people over the next six months. It will be revised once fuller assessments of the damage are made.
Livestock deaths
The floods have significantly reduced the upcoming harvest in the south and killed significant numbers of livestock, prompting immediate concerns about food insecurity.
"Many communities were caught unawares and they lost a lot of their food stocks," Karin Manente, country representative for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), told IRIN.
"At this time of the year, it's right before the harvest and food stock levels were already low, and so some of them lost the little they had left," she said.
Several villages were washed away entirely in Sekong Province by the floods, while access to the remote provinces has been obstructed by damaged roads and debris, according to the appeal document.
John Reinstein, country director for Save the Children Norway, which is working with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) on child protection and rebuilding schools, said the damage to infrastructure, including roads and schools, and overall development was serious.
"We're talking about 10 years' setback in an already poor development area of the country," Reinstein told IRIN.
Health risks
The UN warned in the appeal document of increased health risks from poor water and sanitation conditions in flood-affected areas, as well as a greater risk of malaria and dengue fever with the proliferation of mosquito-breeding sites.
Laos is the most heavily unexploded ordnance (UXO)-affected nation per capita, and the UN is concerned about receding flood waters exposing UXO and putting the flood-affected population at further risk.
The funding appeal, coordinated with the government's National Disaster Management Office, will cover relief work by UN agencies and their NGO partners. The Food and Agriculture Organization, UN Development Programme, UN Population Fund, UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), UNICEF, WFP, and the World Health Organization are the appealing agencies.
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