Two years ago this week, a dam in southern Laos collapsed, releasing a flood that displaced over 7,000 people and killed at least 71. When a section of the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy hydropower project broke on July 23, 2018, it sent 500 million cubic meters of water downstream. The flooding destroyed people’s homes and farms, inundating the land with mud and forcing them into temporary shelters. Some estimates put the total number displaced as high as 14,000.
