Word: mekong
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...signs of crisis are clear enough. The leafy green capital of Phnom-Penh, its population swelled to 1,500,000 by some 400,000 refugees from the fighting, remains cut off from most of the country. Two convoys of ships from South Viet Nam managed to slip up the Mekong River through heavy Communist gunfire (see next story). About 400 trucks carrying food supplies arrived safely from Kompong Som, on the western seaboard. The blockade has technically been broken, but it may take weeks to determine whether the Communist offensive has been turned back...
...months, and the capital's central market is well stocked with imported goods, fruits and vegetables. But there is only enough diesel fuel to power the city's water system for 19 days, and the electricity supply is dependent on the arrival of further convoys up the Mekong. The airlift announced by the U.S. this week is limited to JP4 jet fuel for the Cambodian air force's tiny fleet of about 20 helicopters...
...bonuses to do the work−set out every ten days from the South Vietnamese port of Vung Tau with cargoes of machinery, machine parts and fuel. The latest convoy, however, was delayed two weeks while U.S. bombers tried to clear a passage through Communist gunners along the Mekong riverbanks...
...Windows rattled, and the whole capital literally shook last night as bombs fell on Communist emplacements to the southeast along the Mekong River," TIME Correspondent Gavin Scott reported from Phnom-Penh. "Sleepless residents of the Le Phnom Hotel moved to rooms on the north side in search of peace and quiet. One marveled, 'This must be the only hotel in the world where you have to change your room because of B-52 raids...
...maintain a professionally neutral posture despite their Western sponsorship, and the Poles and Hungarians, who invariably favor the Communist side, nearly all ICCS teams suffer a built-in paralysis. TIME Correspondent Barry Hillenbrand visited one ICCS team last week in Tri Ton, a small town in the Mekong Delta. His report...