Cleaning Up After Asian Floods

For centuries, Koreans called it "The Water Demon" - dark brown floodwater that swallowed everything in its way, including cows, pigs, homes, rice paddies and often human lives.

In the aftermath of floods that swamped villages, highways and huge tracts of farmland last week, Koreans again learned how devilish nature can be.

Low-lying towns north of Seoul, the South Korean capital, looked like huge garbage dumps on Saturday. Streets were clotted with broken furniture that residents had rescued from their sodden homes, and crumpled cars lay overturned.

Military trucks zigzagged through the wreckage, carrying carcasses of dead animals and kicking up dust - a new health hazard. Soldiers near the heavily fortified border with North Korea combed the churned earth in search of mines that had been swept away.

Across Asia, people were struggling to clean up from several weeks of devastating floods caused by heavy rains and storms. In the past week, floods have killed more than 950 people and left millions homeless.

Weather forecasters said seasonal monsoon rains are likely to continue for much of this month in Southeast Asia, raising fears in the region's many countries of further flooding.

Many of the victims were the same poor people who lost their jobs in the financial crisis that hit many Asian economies two years ago.

"I virtually lost everything during a flood in 1996. I have since bought new furniture, a new TV set and put a new roof on my house. This week, it's all gone again," said Kim Eui-sop, 54, a bookstore owner in South Korea's Paju town, near the border with North Korea.

"Business is not as it used to be. I wonder how I am going to rebuild my home this time," Kim said.

In South Korea, the floodwaters that killed at least 44 and left 20 missing had all but gone on Saturday. As the summer sun shone for a third straight day, long lines of soldiers in green or red shirts marched into stricken villages with shovels in hand.

Experts said the flooding in Asia was worsened by decades of reckless exploitation of forests, which usually help prevent floods by slowing down the flow of rainwater into streams.

Areas north of Seoul had lost most of their forestland in the 1970s and 1980s, when a booming South Korea built a mass of apartment blocks and resort parks around its sprawling metropolitan capital.

But South Korea's economy, like those of its Asian neighbors, collapsed suddenly in late 1997 and is still struggling to recover.

In the Cambodian town of Kampot, where four children drowned in midweek flooding, waters on Saturday had fallen back to knee-high level and children splashed through the streets, using plastic wash basins as boats.

Pigs, dogs and cows waded around local government buildings, which were empty because of a power cut earlier in the week.

In the Philippines, the death toll had reached 110. Forty died when a lndslide hit a hillside housing estate. Dozens were missing.

China said 725 people have died from flooding since June, many of them along the Yangtze River. The toll, however, was considerably less than last year in China, when the worst flooding in 44 years killed 4,150 people.

In Vietnam, flooding in four provinces last week killed 37 people and caused nearly $20 million of damage.

In Thailand, flooding has claimed six lives and left at least 1,000 people homeless.