Highlanders in Nghe An create a "magical" refrigerator that doesn't need electricity.

Located 8 km from the commune center by forest road, Thung Khang village is one of the most difficult villages of Chau Binh commune (Quy Chau).

This village has a total of 129 households, of which 114 are poor, the remaining 15 are near-poor, 100% are Thai ethnic group, people's lives mainly depend on the forest and currently the whole village still has no electricity to use.

The "magical" refrigerator of Mr. Ha Van Tung. Photo: Luong Nga

On hot days, the highest temperature can reach 40 degrees Celsius. Although there is no electricity grid, the people of Thung Khang village have known how to use water power to generate electricity, but the power source is very weak, only enough for lighting. In "difficulty" comes "ingenuity", the villagers here have found a very good way to preserve ice for a week.

Following the instructions of the locals, we went to the house of Mr. Ha Van Tung, the owner of the refrigerator with such "functions".

The refrigerator can preserve drinks and ice for 1 week. Photo: Luong Nga

Mr. Tung said: Realizing the need to use ice to quench thirst on hot days, he struggled to find a solution to keep ice cold and cool drinks to serve people.

He made a wooden cabinet with a height of 1.5m, length and width of 1.8m; then, he made a small wooden barrel with a height of 1.3m, length and width of 1.6m, then spread rice husks on the bottom of the big barrel with a thickness of 20cm, then placed the small barrel into the big one so that it was balanced and continued to spread rice husks around the edges, the thickness of each side of the husks was 20cm.

Inside the small box, Mr. Tung covered it with a tarpaulin and secured it with nails. Then, he put the drinks and ice in and covered it with foam and two layers of cotton blankets. Thanks to that, the ice can be preserved for 1 week to 10 days.