Mekong River's water level dangerously shallow due to lasting drought

Vel says normally river water spills over into the lakes and ponds so the fish can breed, but now that can't happen. Photos: dpa

Ho San stands next to the wooden boat he calls home and pointed to the exposed river bank surrounding Chroy Changvar, the riparian peninsula where the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers converge in Phnom Penh.

"You can see from the mud where the water normally reaches," the Cambodian fisherman tells dpa. "We've never seen it this low. When the water is like this, we go hungry."