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Last press release

Don Bosco Sihanoukville | 05.09.2009. An electrical storm woke up Sihanoukville this morning and produced a fire within the studios of radio and television of the Don Bosco Technical School of Oupram Street. At about 6:00 a strong lightning struck near the campus of the school that is normally well protected from this kind of natural phenomena. Suddenly, smoke came out from the social communication - IT section. The fire was notices by the more than 100 borders who sleep within the compound, students of the technical and hotel school sections.
Efforts to extinguish the fire were useless, because it was enclosed by the sound proof rooms that, fortunately, avoided the fire to reach other areas of the two-stores building. The Sihanoukville fire-fighters sent two trucks. Two holes were opened on the wall to the destroyed studios. The presence of flames were unseen, giving the idea that the place just melted with the heat and produced a lot of smoke. It is possible that the lightning lit any of the many cables of the TV studio.

Losses
The studios of radio and television were completed destroyed. Inside there were two computers, a projector, audiovisual material like cds, video cassettes, vcds, cables and microphones. According to Fr John Visser, rector of the technical school, the losses can be evaluated in 10 thousand dollars, that were donation from benefactors from the Netherlands.
Other areas of the social communication - IT section were untouched by the fire like the classroom, the computer laboratory, the printing department and the web house. No body was hurt in part because it was early in the morning. With the proximity of the rain some teachers who sleep inside the school went into the building and turned off electricity systems and computers. The second floor dedicated to the secretariat section remained also safe from the flames.

The studios
The studios of radio and television were the most recent project of the technical school of Don Bosco in the Opram Street. They were built last February with the support of some benefactors from Holland to complete the programs of social communication and IT for the students. A technician in audiovisual production from US became the coordinator.

Fr Albeiro Rodas, vice rector of the school and coordinator of the social communication project, said:

"This is a new challenge for our project of Don Bosco in favor of our dear students. I am very happy that nobody was hurt. It would be a real tragedy. We are going to do it better... we believe in the love of Don Bosco, we believe in the young people and we believe in Cambodia. I hope many people will come to encounter this new need. We want the studios to be a center of production for the education and development of this country."

More info at www.donboscosihanoukville.org
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In Khmer 092 87 96 04