Arriving at Muong Xen town, Ky Son district on October 3rd, right after the flash flood hit two communes, on the night of October 1st and the morning of October 2nd, everyone was shocked by the scene of devastation and destruction. On both sides of National Highway 7, rocks and soil were buried higher than a person's head, blocking the gates, and flooding into houses with a thickness of 2-3m. All property and belongings, if not swept away, were lost in the mud. On the main roads, there were large and small rocks scattered everywhere, some as big as houses, crushing everything they passed by.
In just one night, 233 houses of people and government agencies were swept away or collapsed, buried under thousands of tons of mud and rocks. Along with that, 1 person died and hundreds of billions of dong of property and assets were also swept away by the raging flood. Mr. Ha Ba Chong in Son Ha village, Ta Ca commune - one of the two villages in the flood zone in Ky Son, when recounting what he and his family and the villagers had to endure, his voice was still shocked: "At around 1am on October 1st, I suddenly woke up because I heard people screaming for help, the sound of the stream flowing and rocks crashing down like a helicopter. Then the water rushed up and flooded the streams in front and behind the village. In the blink of an eye, 3 houses at the front of the village completely collapsed. 1 child died, 3 people were swept away by the flood, including my cousin. As for Hoa Son village, hundreds of houses were swept away, submerged in mud, soil, and rocks" - Mr. Ha Ba Chong recalled.
When the flood hit, in addition to 1 person in Son Ha village, Ta Ca commune who died; the flood also swept away, damaged, and collapsed 233 houses; swept away 2 cars and 72 motorbikes; 11 cars, 118 motorbikes and bicycles were buried under mud. Hundreds of household appliances, electronic devices... were also completely damaged. The rain and flood caused serious flooding and landslides, completely isolated dozens of points on the Muong Xen - Tay Son route, Tay Son and Nam Can communes. National Highway 7 in Ta Ca and Nam Can communes had landslides at more than 11 points. Provincial Road 543D Muong Xen - Ta Do - Khe Kien had landslides on the positive slope, making it impossible for vehicles to travel. In addition, dozens of serious landslides occurred on many routes into the communes.
Nearly a month earlier, from the evening of September 4 to 7, heavy rains also occurred in Ky Son district in some communes such as Huu Kiem, Chieu Luu, Bao Nam, Ta Ca, Pha Danh... Water from streams and creeks poured down, causing flash floods, causing many houses to be swept away and collapsed, many roads to have serious landslides, and traffic to be blocked for many days. There were 138 houses of people in the communes of Huu Lap, Huu Kiem, Bao Nam, Bao Thang affected, of which 8 solid houses of people in Bao Nam and Huu Lap communes completely collapsed; causing landslides at dozens of locations, with thousands of cubic meters of soil and rock on the roads to Huu Lap, Bao Nam, Bao Thang, Huu Kiem communes... The flash flood also caused more than 50 hectares of summer-autumn rice fields to be severely damaged, mainly concentrated in the communes of Chieu Luu, Huu Lap and Pha Danh. Many rice fields are buried under layers of rock and soil that are difficult to restore.
While the mountainous areas suffered a lot of damage from flash floods, many downstream areas were also deeply submerged in floodwaters.
Less than 10 years ago, in early October 2013, the newly established Hoang Mai town suffered the most terrible flood in its history, causing 3 deaths and missing people, 8,000 households were deeply flooded, and 620 households had to be urgently evacuated from the danger zone. Not to mention thousands of hectares of crops, shrimp ponds were flooded and thousands of livestock were submerged in water, along with many damaged state works. The damage was later estimated at more than 835 billion VND.
Since then, the town has been repeatedly hit by large and small floods. In 2021, the flood in September caused 188 households in wards and communes such as Mai Hung, Quynh Thien, Quynh Vinh, and Quynh Trang to be flooded, and many areas of vegetables, crops, and aquaculture ponds were submerged and damaged. Most recently, the flood from September 29 to 30 caused severe damage to crops and livestock in Hoang Mai town. In addition, the flood also caused water to enter 3,385 households' houses, and 144 households had to evacuate... This is considered a major flood, approaching the historic flood in 2013 that occurred in this locality.
Mr. Nguyen Duy Thao - Vice Chairman of the People's Council of Hoang Mai town is concerned that, in the past, when referring to historical floods, people often defined a cycle of decades, but in recent years, the interval between major floods has been shortened with increasing frequency. In the context of increasingly strong concreting, making it difficult for flood water to drain. In addition, many newly built infrastructure works such as highways, coastal roads... are built higher than flood water levels, unintentionally turning into dikes, making it very difficult for flood water in the upper localities to drain. This is an obvious danger, if there is no fundamental solution, deeper flooding in the coming years is inevitable.
Not only in Hoang Mai town, in Quynh Luu district, floods have also occurred frequently in recent years. Remember the flood at the end of September 2021 also caused more than 3,000 households in the communes of Quynh Lam, Quynh Hong, Quynh Nghia, Quynh Giang, Cau Giat town to be flooded. The flood that occurred at the end of September alone caused nearly 6,000 households to have water in their houses, the most severe being in Quynh Lam commune and Cau Giat town. The rain and floods also caused 7 houses in the area to have their roofs blown off, 450m of river and dam dykes to collapse. In addition, more than 1.4km of roads were eroded and caused National Highway 1A through Cau Giat town and National Highway 48 through Quynh My commune to be deeply flooded for many days in a row, greatly affecting the travel of vehicles.
For localities located downstream of Lam River such as Thanh Chuong, Nam Dan, Hung Nguyen... coping with frequent severe flooding has caused a huge loss of resources among the people as well as the local government. Thanh Xuan commune is a locality located in the Bich Hao flood center of Thanh Chuong district, this is one of the communes that often suffers from severe flooding.
Mr. Nguyen Khanh Thanh - Secretary of Thanh Xuan Commune Party Committee shared: this is a place that is often devastated by floods, in which the intensity and frequency are increasing, greatly affecting people's lives. In particular, the flood after the recent storm No. 4 caused severe damage to houses and crops. In particular, up to 70% of households in the commune were submerged and completely isolated. "We have never witnessed a flood that lasted for such a long time (more than a week before the water receded), the entire daily life of the people was disrupted. Not only that, during the days of being submerged by the flood, the locality had a complete power outage, making the response and rescue work in the area even more difficult" - Mr. Thanh said.
According to statistics from Thanh Chuong district, the recent flood caused 2 deaths (1 person from Ngoc Son commune and 1 person from Thanh Yen commune), 1,335 houses and 5 schools were flooded; 413 landslides; 6 houses collapsed; at the peak, the disaster prevention force of communes and towns immediately evacuated 780 households out of the danger zone at night... Besides, the flood also caused severe damage to production with about 1,300 hectares of rice, crops, and industrial trees being flooded; 1,115 hectares of ponds overflowing; 18,677 poultry and 137 cattle died, swept away by water... The total damage after the flood is estimated at nearly 100 billion VND. This is a very large number for a locality that is still facing many difficulties like Thanh Chuong.
Explaining the cause of flooding in the district, Mr. Tran Phi Hung - Head of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Thanh Chuong district said: In Thanh Chuong district, the Bich Hao area (including Thanh Xuan, Thanh Lam, Thanh Tung, Thanh Mai, Thanh Giang, Thanh Ha communes) is a low-lying area, with a lower ground level than the general level, therefore, during times of heavy rain, water from other areas flows in, causing flooding here, unable to drain and flooding has occurred for many years. The only drainage point in this area is to the Lam River, however, in reality, when it rains heavily, the water level in the Lam River is sometimes higher than inside the residential area, leading to the inability to open the drainage sluices because water from the river flows back in, which will further increase the flooding.
In addition to the rapid water level rise due to objective factors such as heavy rainfall and low-lying terrain, in recent years, water from upstream has been flowing at a faster rate, partly due to the reduction of upstream forest area. In addition, during times of heavy rain, hydroelectric plants simultaneously release floodwaters, causing the already high water level in the downstream area to rise even higher.
In Hung Nguyen district, the flooded area is divided into two distinct areas, including localities along Lam River and communes bordering Nghi Loc district. In the flood at the end of September, the entire Hung Nguyen district had 3,154 households in 38 hamlets in 11 communes and towns in the area flooded, including deeply flooded communes such as Chau Nhan, Hung Loi, Hung Trung... In addition, hundreds of hectares of rice and crops were flooded, many aquaculture areas were swept away, and many works were severely damaged. Notably, on the night of September 29, the low canal dike of Hung Dao commune, Hung Nguyen district was broken, threatening nearly 1,700 households, along with 400 hectares of crops in the commune and neighboring localities.
