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Heavy rains kill 1 in South Korea and flood major streets in Philippines

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Torrential rains have pounded southern South Korea, leaving one person dead and four others injured, officials said Monday.

One person died in a landslide that struck an apartment building in the southern city of Geoje on Monday, the Interior and Safety Ministry said in a report. It said two people were injured in Geoje and two others in nearby cities.

The heavy rains that have pummeled southern South Korea since Saturday have forced about 390 people to evacuate to safe places and caused power outages at about 3,580 houses, the ministry report said.

In the Philippines, heavy monsoon rains flooded key streets and snarled traffic early Monday in the densely populated region of metropolitan Manila and a dozen outlying provinces, forcing the government to suspend government work and cancel classes at all levels starting at noon. Schools were asked to shift to online learning.

About three weeks of intermittent monsoon rains and a storm that lashed the main northern island region of Luzon two weeks ago left at least 23 people dead, mostly due to landslides and floods, and affected 5 million people, including nearly 25,000, who remained in government emergency shelters on Monday in several northern provinces, according to the Office of Civil Defense.

Among the dead were 10 people, including children, whose houses were buried by an Aug. 9 landslide in the northern mountain resort city of Baguio. Three others were dug out alive with injuries by rescuers from the avalanche of mud, rocks and debris that collapsed from a mountainside as people slept, officials said.

Donor fatigue guts demining in Asia, as active conflicts draw away funding

SIEM REAP, Cambodia (AP) — En Poy was minding cattle in a former Khmer Rouge stronghold in Cambodia when he set off his first land mine. The blast from the rusty relic he picked up cost him an arm and an eye. It also inspired his career with the nonprofit Cambodian Self Help Demining, which clears land mines and unexploded ordnance across the country, deadly remnants of wars from the last century. Groups like Poy’s that rely on foreign aid are struggling as donors shift funding for humanitarian demining toward active conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, and to more recent wars, like in Syria and Afghanistan. Today's conflicts are also driving higher defense spending, leaving less money for aid. President Donald Trump’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and a 90-day freeze on foreign aid last year worsened the problems, though American demining support to Cambodia has restarted.
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