Rebecca Hersher

And that is when you get a flood.

Well, they're both happening in Cambodia.

But rain is the most relevant one in the village we visited.

So Cambodia and Southeast Asia more broadly experience monsoons, these massive seasonal rainstorms that cause some flooding.

That's a normal thing in this part of the world.

But climate change is making monsoons more extreme and less predictable.

So periods of unseasonable drought followed by this torrential rain.

Yeah, exactly.

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.

Did this neighborhood flood?

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.