Xayaburi Dam, Mekong River, Laos 2019. The Xayaburi dam is the first out of five large dams planned to be built in Laos, along the Mekong river and officially started operating in November 2019, as a milestone of the ambitious yet controversial plan of the Government of Laos to become the “battery of South-East Asia”. Its construction started back in 2012 and both environmentalist and human rights activists long criticised its construction.
