Rebecca Hersher
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Bigger than what used to happen.
And last year was a particularly bad year for flooding in Praktush.
I talked to two local fish sellers about it, Klee Pali and Sen Sera.
The water came to destroy the house.
So the other voice you hear there is Tat Odom, the Cambodian journalist and interpreter who worked with me.
The women told us that the water nearly destroyed their homes three times in the fall of 2025 alone.
And that last flood in November was the worst one, which was strange, actually, because usually the strongest monsoon rains come earlier than that.
Yeah, exactly, which makes them more dangerous because people aren't expecting them as much.
And the water in November was really powerful, Polly told us.
People are gesturing like it was up to their necks.
So she was pointing across the street at her neighbor's house, which is raised off the ground on like 20-foot pillars to keep the water out.
And the water line from the flood was about 15 feet off the ground.
Yeah, it's a ton of water, and the water is moving, so no one would stand a chance in that kind of flood.
They're just super, super deadly.
And just last year, floods killed hundreds of people in five countries across Southeast Asia.
In 2022, floods killed more than 1,000 people in Pakistan, displaced millions more.
Now, those floods made headlines.
The one in Praktush didn't really get any attention outside Cambodia, but it was just as dangerous.