The scale of the disaster is still unclear, in part because of the inaccessibility of the area but also because reports from the communist country’s state media have been scant and sketchy.
A senior Lao government official told Reuters by telephone from the capital, Vientiane, on Wednesday that dozens were feared dead after the failure of the dam, a subsidiary structure under construction as part of a hydroelectric project.
On the same day, the Vientiane Times reported that about 19 people had died and more than 3,000 were awaiting rescue, many of them on the rooftops of submerged homes.
However, on Thursday the daily cited Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith as saying that the number missing was 131, only one person had been found dead and all those who sought shelter on rooftops and trees had been plucked to safety.
