Radio Australia
8 May, 2013
A small herd of water buffalo beats the afternoon heat in the cool waters of the Se San River. Nearby Srekor village is a tranquil place of 400 families that has stood on the southern bank of the Se San River for as long as anyone here can remember. It won’t be here much longer: in the next year or so, the residents will have to leave.
The reason? A vast hydropower dam with an 8-kilometre-long wall will be built downstream. Its reservoir will cover more than 300 square kilometres, and once the waters rise, Srekor village with its stilted, wooden houses, its well-established garden compounds and its mature fruit trees will be swallowed up.
Pa Tou, a 37-year-old father of three, has lived in Srekor village all his life.