THE World Bank has pledged US$40 million towards the recovery from Typhoon Ketsana, which tore through the Kingdom in September last year and left 43 people dead. The Ketsana Emergency Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Project is intended to provide “affected people who are mostly poor and live in rural areas” with transportation and water and sanitation services. “Typhoon Ketsana devastated the lives and livelihood of tens of thousands of Cambodian people, particularly the poor,” World Bank Country Manager Qimiao Fan said in a statement. “This project will help to restore the damaged infrastructure such as rural roads and provide basic services such as water and sanitation facilities to the affected people in mostly rural areas.” The four-year project is also intended to strengthen emergency-response mechanisms.