Thanh Chuong district clarifies the cause of the landslide on Lam River alluvial land, through Dong Van commune

Society in trouble!

The landslide incident on Lam River alluvial land caused people in Tien Quanh and Dinh Son hamlets to gather to build huts, hang flags, beat drums... to prevent sand mining activities at the end of March 2025. This incident was inspected by the People's Committee of Dong Van commune, the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district, and then an interdisciplinary working group chaired by the Department of Agriculture and Environment.

On April 3, 2025, the Department of Agriculture and Environment issued Document No. 1003/SNNMT-KS to temporarily suspend the sand mining activities of Thanh Chuong Sand and Gravel Mining and Transport Joint Stock Company (an enterprise granted a sand mine in Dong Van commune by the Provincial People's Committee), requesting this enterprise to submit a document requesting to reduce the area of ​​the sand mine in Dong Van commune. At the same time, requesting the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district to clarify the cause of the landslide of 1,117m²Alluvial land (outside the sand mine area of ​​Dong Van commune) to handle violating organizations and individuals (if any) according to the provisions of law.

On April 8, 2025, the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district issued Document No. 820/UBND-NNMT assigning the People's Committee of Dong Van commune to carry out a number of related contents, including verifying and clarifying the cause of the landslide of Tien Quanh alluvial land. The direction of the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district is that the People's Committee of Dong Van commune must verify and clarify the cause of the landslide of an area of ​​1,117 m²located outside the mining area “due to mining or landslides”.

Specifically: “If due to mining, which organization or individual is responsible or if due to landslide, determine the cause, scope (distance from the mine marker to the landslide location on the surface), time of landslide onset and handle violations (according to authority)…”. At the same time, it is required that by April 20, 2025, the People's Committee of Dong Van commune must report the results of the assigned tasks.

Following the direction of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee, Dong Van commune leaders established a verification team, worked with Thanh Chuong Sand and Transport Joint Stock Company and inland waterway port owners located in Dong Van and Thanh An communes; organized a review and verification of boat owners with sand mining activities to verify whether or not they were mining within the 1,117 m area.².

However, the process of verifying the cause of the landslide by the People's Committee of Dong Van commune has encountered difficulties. Report No. 275/BC-UBND dated April 25, 2025 of the People's Committee of Dong Van commune stated that during the working process, the inland waterway port in Thanh Ngoc commune had not provided relevant documents; on the other hand, among the boat owners directly exploiting, there were a number of boat owners registered as permanent residents in the northern provinces. When sand exploitation was suspended, these boat owners returned to their permanent residence and were not present in the locality. Also here, the People's Committee of Dong Van commune informed that it had contacted boat owners residing in the northern provinces to work after the April 30 - May 1 holiday; after working with the boat owners, it would report the verification results to the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district.

By May 8, 2025, the People's Committee of Dong Van commune had Report No. 324/BC-UBND sent to the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district. Regarding the work done, the People's Committee of Dong Van commune reported that it had worked with relevant organizations and individuals; at the same time, it had notified and encouraged people to provide videos, clips, images and related information reflecting illegal sand mining activities within the area of ​​1,117 m²outside the mine.

However, Dong Van Commune People's Committee only determined the landslide area to be 1,117 m2.²The furthest surface distance from the landslide site to the mine marker is 23m, to the mine boundary is 43m; agreed to reduce the mine area according to the Working Minutes dated April 3, 2025 chaired by the Department of Agriculture and Environment; the cause of the landslide is still undetermined.

The reason is that during the working process with relevant organizations and individuals (including boat owners and direct operators), no illegal exploitation was detected in the area of ​​1,117 m2.²located outside the mine; in addition, no videos, clips, images and related information reflecting illegal sand mining activities within the 1,117 m landslide area were detected.².

Thanh Chuong district takes action

The whole story of the landslide incident on the Lam River alluvial bank through Dong Van commune was reported by Nghe An Newspaper on April 14, 2025 in the article "Not just a story in Dong Van". In the process of collecting documents to write this article, we learned that before the people of Tien Quanh and Dinh Son hamlets took actions to prevent sand mining activities, on March 25, 2025, Dong Van Commune People's Committee inspected and determined that there was a landslide in the sand mine area and made a record against Thanh Chuong Sand, Gravel Mining and Transport Joint Stock Company.

The Minutes made by the People's Committee of Dong Van Commune at 3:00 p.m. on March 25, 2025 (signed and confirmed by a representative of Thanh Chuong Sand and Gravel Mining and Transport Joint Stock Company) clearly stated: "At the current location M2, the boundary post has eroded into the beach with a width of about 20m at its widest point; the height from the sand surface to the water surface is about 2m. From point M2 going up to the top of Ong and Mu rocks (outside the mine), the sand has been eroded from the point outside the eroding sand about 10m".

The request of Dong Van Commune People's Committee in the minutes for Thanh Chuong Sand Mining and Transport Joint Stock Company is: "Exploit within the prescribed time; require the company using the mine to exploit according to regulations, exploit in the licensed mine area; place damaged markers before March 30, 2025; temporarily stop mining to determine the affected area".

On April 9, 2025, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Chuong - Chairman of Dong Van Commune People's Committee informed the reporter of Nghe An Newspaper: "The exploitation activities of the enterprise are very unprofessional, everyone does their own thing. Therefore, although the commune requested to temporarily stop, they did not comply, leading to the incident on March 28 when people set up a tent to prevent exploitation...".

Therefore, when accessing Report No. 324/BC-UBND dated May 8, 2025 of Dong Van Commune People's Committee (mentioned above), we contacted and asked Mr. Nguyen Quoc Chuong to explain. According to Chairman of Dong Van Commune People's Committee Nguyen Quoc Chuong, the direction of Thanh Chuong District People's Committee is to verify and clarify the cause. If the landslide was caused by exploitation, it is necessary to clarify which organization or individual. Although Dong Van Commune People's Committee has some initial comments, it is really difficult to verify and clarify the behavior of the subject at the commune level because of limited authority and lack of professional investigation staff.

Chairman of the Commune People's Committee Nguyen Quoc Chuong said: “We are very concerned about this content. As the Head of the Verification Team, I and the members have worked with all relevant organizations and individuals. However, we realize that we cannot draw conclusions without sufficient grounds according to the provisions of the law. To clarify this issue in the current context, we hope that the higher authorities will intervene…”.

Grasping information from Thanh Chuong District People's Committee later, it was said that, from the Report of Dong Van Commune People's Committee, the district directed the Department of Agriculture and Environment to take action. Thereby, it was determined that Thanh Chuong Sand, Gravel Exploitation and Transport Joint Stock Company had a number of violations such as improperly placing markers; exploitation not following the exploitation design; exploitation must deduct safety belts but in reality, there were no safety belts left at the site; making inaccurate records of exploitation output... With these violations, Thanh Chuong District People's Committee plans to impose administrative sanctions with the form of administrative fines in cash and additional sanctions with the form of continuing to suspend exploitation activities for 2 months.

“Regarding the cause of the landslide, the district determined that the enterprise was exploiting within the safety zone, and when the boats were operating, there were impacts, leading to landslides. Thanh Chuong district has also worked with and publicly disclosed these contents to the enterprise and they basically acknowledged the violations and asked to correct them. On that basis, the district leaders assigned the functional department to review the provisions of the law to issue a decision to sanction administrative violations against Thanh Chuong Sand Exploitation and Transport Joint Stock Company…”, Mr. Tran Phi Hung - Head of the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Thanh Chuong district discussed.