The torrent of water unleashed in a deadly Laos dam collapse has drained into Cambodia, forcing thousands to be evacuated, as rescuers on Thursday battled monsoon rains to find scores of Laotians still missing after whole villages were washed away.
Twenty-seven people have been confirmed dead, with 131 still missing, after the Xe-Namnoy dam collapsed on Monday in a remote southern corner of Laos, leaving villagers with little time to escape.
It is an unprecedented accident to strike the hydropower industry in Laos, where the Communist government has dammed large sections of its myriad waterways to generate electricity that is mostly consumed by its neighbors.
The search and rescue effort entered a third day Thursday, with China, Vietnam and Thailand sending in specialists, while villagers picked through their wrecked, mud-caked homes for possessions as the flood waters receded.
Carcasses of livestock floated in the knee-deep waters in a devastated village visited by AFP.
Thousands of villagers downstream in Cambodia have also been forced to flee as the water once held back by the dam flowed south.