District Tells Development Firm to Compensate Flooded Eateries

The governor of Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva district said he has asked the Overseas Cambodia Investment Company (OCIC) to compensate the owners of two restaurants that were flooded Wednesday after the firm’s excavator ruptured a nearby levee that had been holding back a pool of standing water.

Governor Khlaing Hout said employees of OCIC, which is developing a $3 billion satellite city in the area, were using an excavator to dig next to the levee when the embankment collapsed at about noon.

An employee of the Boeung Meas restaurant in Phnom Penh wades through water that flooded the establishment Wednesday. (Siv Channa/The Cambodia Daily)
An employee of the Boeung Meas restaurant in Phnom Penh wades through water that flooded the establishment Wednesday. (Siv Channa/The Cambodia Daily)

He said the collapse sent the muddy water behind the levee streaming onto the properties of two restaurants, causing thousands of dollars’ worth of damage—including the death of a $4,000 fish that had been imported from the Amazon River.

“This is the fault of the OCIC company because they were digging up the dirt until the dam broke,” Mr. Hout said.

“The company has to go and inspect the damage at the restaurants and compensate them,” he said, adding that both restaurant owners had already filed complaints with his office.

Seng Ly, who owns the Boeung Meas restaurant, said the water flooded an outdoor stage and the furniture and karaoke equipment inside 12 rooms, valuing the total damage at about $500,000.

Doeun Dun, who manages the other restaurant, Mother in Law 2, said his establishment suffered less, but that the flooding caused the death of the imported fish, which died when the muddy water inundated its pond. He said customers present when the water flowed in also left without paying their bills.

“We lost more than $5,000 to the flood,” he said. “The owner has filed a complaint, but everything here is already flooded and damaged.”

OCIC project manager Touch Samnang said he was aware of the flooding but insisted that it was Mr. Hout’s problem.

“You should ask the district governor everything because OCIC is working in Chroy Changva district, so the governor will know how to solve it,” he said.

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