Worries of the people of Ta village

(Baonghean) -Ta village, Quang Phong commune, Que Phong (Nghe An) has more than 50 Thai households, of which nearly 20 households live close to the steep rocky mountains. Due to the lack of flat land to build houses, people still have to build their houses at the foot of the rocky mountains, despite the lurking danger. People call Ta village "the stone-pressed village".

Following the muddy road with a steep slope on one side and a deep abyss on the other, we arrived at Ta village. From afar, we could see the towering gray rocky mountains, with rooftops looming below. Lo Van Tuan, an officer of Quang Phong commune, pointed and said: "Look, there are many scattered rocks around the rice fields." Looking out at the vast green rice fields, we could see a lot of large and small rocks lying in the middle of the fields or on the edges of the rice fields. The small ones were as big as rice stalks, the medium ones were as big as buffaloes, and the big ones were as big as entire level four houses.

The houses in Ta village are close to the extremely dangerous rocky mountains.

Ms. Vi Thi Phuong said: Every year, rocks fall, but the most terrifying was in 2004. The whole family was sleeping at around 2am when they heard a loud noise like the sky and earth were collapsing. The family of 7 hid under the bed. In the morning, we saw 3 giant rocks crushing 3 bamboo bushes, one of which fell close to the house. Luckily, the rocks did not hit the house. Ms. Phuong led us out to the garden and saw several large rocks as big as black buffaloes, covered with moss, lying one after another next to the bamboo bushes. I asked: Why is it so dangerous that the family doesn't move to another place? "Ms. Phuong lamented: Flat land in the mountains is rare, it's impossible to find, so we just risk our lives here!"

Use fallen rocks to make stairs up and down the house



A rock just fell into the field.

Next door is Ms. Vi Thi Ngoc's house, her husband's name is Vi Chung Ly, after getting married they built a makeshift house at the foot of the mountain for over a year now. I looked up from behind and saw a towering cliff, the rocks were stacked up as if they were about to collapse in a gust of wind. Yet Ms. Ngoc's makeshift house is about 2 meters from the cliff. Ms. Ngoc was holding her 6-month-old baby and still smiling calmly: "My brother-in-law lent me a piece of land here to build a house, I know it's very dangerous but I don't know where else to go." Next to us we saw a hut leaning against the cliff as a support, a large rock fell down, the homeowner used it to make a staircase up and down.

Mr. Vi Van Diep - Chairman of Quang Phong commune said: This rocky mountain range is mainly vertical cliffs, with many cracks on its own, just a slight impact such as rain and wind will cause rocks to fall. The commune has warned the people of Ta village many times about the problem of falling rocks that are dangerous to life, however, moving people to a safe place is a difficult problem. Flat land is rare, the cost of moving is too large, the commune has proposed to the People's Committee of Que Phong district to have a plan to move quickly, otherwise the consequences will be very unpredictable.

Van Truong