When a politician started sharing his doomsday prophecy on Facebook last week, his supporters left their lives behind and traveled from around the country to northwestern Cambodia’s Siem Reap province. According to authorities, some even traveled from as far as South Korea to seek refuge from the apocalypse, prompting the Cambodian embassy in Seoul to issue a public statement warning migrant workers against abandoning their jobs to fly home

Photos posted on Khem Veasna’s Facebook page, which has over 370,000 followers, show a large crowd assembling at his farm[…]Authorities estimated the number at around 15,000 to 20,000[…]Among those arriving at his farm are families with children and elderly relatives

Those waiting out the apocalypse at Veasna’s farmhouse have passed the time listening to the preachings of the president of the small but well-established opposition group, the League for Democracy Party (LDP)[…]
In recent years, Veasna has been veering away from politics and cultivating a cult-like persona among his thousands of followers, referring to himself as a brahma—a religious title broadly meaning heavenly king

The growing cult around Veasna escalated on Aug. 23, when he made a series of apocalyptic predictions on his Facebook page. He has claimed that a “black hole” in his spine has been sending him a message about an impending flood that would wipe out the earth[…]
Veasna’s supporters have remained stubbornly fixated on his doomsday calls, ignoring days of orders from local authorities to go home[…]He was supposed to disband the crowd by the end of Tuesday