VietNamNet Bridge - HCM City, Hanoi and residents in other urban areas are now faced with frequent flooding, a result of people not living in harmony with nature, scientists say.

“Floods after heavy rains not only occur in HCM City, where the flooding is more serious because of high tides and the low terrain, but also in Hanoi, Bien Hoa, Dong Nai, Ca Mau and Kien Giang,” said Nguyen Van Tat, a renowned architect.

“We now try to build more houses, infrastructure items, enlarge airports and upgrade transport networks, but we forget that we need to live in harmony with nature,” he said.

A report pointed out that 60 percent of canals in HCM City have disappeared in the last 20 years. The canals have been filled in to make room for houses and apartment blocks to accommodate the increasingly high number of residents.

According to Ho Long Phi, director of the Water and Climate Change Research Institute (WACC), HCM City alone would need VND150 trillion to settle flooding. At least VND50 trillion would be needed in the next five years. 

“In Europe, people, when using one dong worth of water, will have to spend four dong on the water drainage. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, people use ten dong worth of water and only pay one dong for water drainage,” he noted.

“The sum of money is not enough to dredge sewers, let alone building new drainage systems,” he said.

Phi stressed that the flooding cannot be settled with short-term solutions. Meanwhile, the city does not think of solutions to settle the problem to the every root, but just tries to address the consequences by building sewers, dykes and water reservoirs.

“The easiest and most effective way to settle the problem is restoring the situation and protecting the 40 percent of canals left,” he said.

Foreign experts at a meeting discussing solutions to the floods in HCM City on September 29 warned that HCM City will lag behind in economic growth if deluge happens.

I Chang Tsai, an expert from Taiwan, noted that the flooding in HCM City is at ‘red alarm’ level, which may cause serious floods similar to what happened in Bangkok some years ago.

Meanwhile, at a workshop held on October 27, scientists recommended that the dykes in Mekong River Delta be solidified. 

A scientist said that in the Netherlands, dykes are designed to bear natural calamities over a period of 1,000 years and in the Mekong River Delta, the standard is for only 5-20 years.

Dat Viet