A way of life is disappearing on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap lake

CHONG KNEAS, Cambodia: At the edge of Cambodia’s great Tonle Sap lake, a wall of red, blue and yellow metal drums rises bright against the muddy water.

Meas Chou stockpiles these drums wherever he can and sells them to families who use them to keep their houses afloat on Southeast Asia’s largest lake. About 1.5 million people live on Tonle Sap, their homes rising and falling with the ebb and flow of the lake’s water levels.

This year’s record-breaking El Niño is predicted to bring hotter, drier weather across Southeast Asia, threatening both fisheries and farms. For Cambodia, which is already in a time of extreme drought, this could stunt Tonle Sap’s annual water flows from the Mekong River, which usually refill the lake each monsoon season.