Fire engulfs squatter camp in Phnom Penh
Thousands of people fled a massive fire which engulfed a squatter camp housing mostly
ethnic Vietnamese on the banks of the Bassac River in Phnom Penh.
Police said the inferno, the second in less than 48 hours, ignited around midnight (1700 GMT
Tuesday), and spread across the shanty town about five kilometres (three miles) south of the
city centre.
Flames up to 30 metres (100 feet) high leaped into the air and an enormous plume of smoke
enveloped the city as the fire spread out of control over a 500 metre square area, witnesses
said.
People were escaping the inferno carrying their belongings on their backs, in rubbish bins on
the top of trucks and in carts as thousands more gathered on the Monivong Bridge to watch
the spectacle.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Police and fire ambulances were at the scene but a police spokesman said the old houses and
wooden shacks were so densely packed together it was hampering efforts by emergency
services.
"At least several hundred houses are burning tonight. It's a large slum area and is crammed
with houses making it impossible for the fire brigade to get inside," he told AFP.
He said angry residents had also hampered efforts by pelting one fire engine with rocks,
damaging the vehicle. He added the blaze could have been started by people burning off
rubbish.
By 3:00 am (2000 GMT) the centre of fire had been reduced to a pile of smouldering embers
but the blaze continued to burn on its southern flank near the bridge and on its northern edge.
A security guard deployed to guard a nearby radio tower said about 10,000 shacks were
contained in the area, adding the fire began at a bend on the river bank.
"More than 90 percent of the people living in there are Vietnamese," he said.
Witnesses also said the fire was larger than an inferno which engulfed another slum area on
Monday when more than 1,000 houses were razed but officials said there were no deaths.
That camp also housed mainly ethnic Vietnamese and least seven people, including an infant,
were injured and another 1,858 families were affected, in that fire officials said.
Monday's fire began just hours after Vietnamese President Tran Duc Luong arrived in
Phnom Penh. He left earlier on Wednesday for Siem Reap in the country's north and was
scheduled to leave Cambodia on Thursday.
Shanty towns in the area where the Tonle Sap and Bassac rivers meet are home to
thousands of the Cambodian capital's poorest people, mostly ethnic Vietnamese.
The city's authorities had previously tried to persuade the squatters to leave the areas, which
have been earmarked for redevelopment.
Large-scale fires have swept through squatter slums in Phnom Penh in recent years which
police said were started through electrical faults and personal disputes.
Last May, an inferno swept through a brothel district in Tham Kamon, near Monday's fire,
destroying hundreds of shacks and leaving nearly 3,000 people homeless.
Agence France Presse - November 28, 2001.
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