Vinh City will establish a comprehensive drainage system project to prevent flooding.

PV:Can you tell us some of the most flooded areas in the city and the causes?
Comrade Tran Quang Lam:Vinh City is the economic and political center of Nghe An province and is currently undergoing rapid urbanization, so there are infrastructure problems. When there is prolonged heavy rain, many areas in the city are flooded.

Flood prone areasespecially in the areas: ditch No. 2 area, Nai bridge; Nguyen Van Cu street area; Nguyen Son street area; Truong Thi street area; Nguyen Thai Hoc street area; Le Nin street area and Xo Viet Nghe Tinh street area; hamlets 13a, 13b, 14, 15 Nghi Kim commune; hamlets 1,2,3 Nghi Kim commune; Vinh market area; Dang Thai Than street area; Hung Dung market area; Phong Dinh Cang street area; Southwest of Vinh station in Dong Vinh ward...

Lenin Avenue is often flooded during prolonged heavy rains. Photo: Document

The main causes of flooding in the above areas are:

The first,Due to the impact of global climate change, the weather is increasingly unpredictable; the rains during the rainy season are often continuous, long lasting and with heavier rainfall than before.
Monday,The impact of urbanization has caused low-lying rice fields, which were previously water-bearing areas, to be filled up and built at a higher planning elevation than existing residential areas. The city's technical infrastructure system has resulted in existing residential areas that have gone from having a higher elevation to drain water into the fields to having a lower elevation and becoming low-lying areas where water cannot drain out.

For new urban areas that are locally flooded, it is because investors have not yet connected to the city's drainage system, and if they have connected, the aperture of the ditch and culvert is too small, such as Handico Vinh Tan Urban Area connected to the pumping station's water tank.Black Bridge.

Comrade Tran Ngoc Tu - Chairman of Vinh City People's Committee inspected storm prevention and control work at Cau Tri Pumping Station. Photo: Lam Tung

On the other hand, in the past, due to the construction measures not ensuring environmental hygiene in the city by construction contractors,construction waste, cement concrete water, sand, gravel, ... have fallen, flowed down causing blockage of ditches, sewers and awareness of protecting irrigation canals. A part of the people's awareness is not good, such as building barriers up and down the sidewalk; pouring soil, sand into the mouths of wells, manholes; littering; ... causing blockage of the flow leading to local flooding.
In recent times, in order to improve the urban landscape and reduce the odor of the primary drainage system, the city has covered the main drainage ditches with concrete, reducing the water collection capacity; the distance between the collection wells and manholes is quite far (50m/1 hole) and the structure of the odor-preventing collection wells does not meet technical standards, so the water collection and drainage speed are reduced. The pumping station system shows signs of overload...

Handico Vinh Tan urban area connects to the water tank of Cau Den pumping station. Graphics: Lam Tung

Wednesday,The city budget is limited, so it has not been able to invest synchronously and meet the scale and capacity of the city's water control projects.

PV:With flooding still occurring, how will the city urgently handle flooding areas during the rainy season this year and the following years?
Comrade Tran Quang Lam:To deal with localized flooding during the rainy season this year and the following years, after storm No. 5, on October 1, 2020, the City People's Committee organized an assessment of the current situation and discussed solutions. Thereby, it proposed immediate and long-term solutions.
In the long term, the city will establish a comprehensive drainage system project (establishing a system of underground construction maps; a system of anti-flooding works;...) to divide investment based on the results of the Vinh city hydraulic model combined with the Lam river basin hydrology being implemented by an international consulting unit and the drainage program supported by the Japanese JICA Organization.

Construction of drainage ditches in Hung Binh ward (Vinh city). Photo: Nguyen Hai

In the immediate future, the city will focus resources on prioritizing flood treatment at local points by adding connecting ditches, adding flood-prevention wells and manholes (using traditional frog-shaped wells in streets without houses); solving bottlenecks, dredging canals; arranging and building new ditches and culverts across roads to reduce the amount of water on roads with too much length such as Le Nin Street, Truong Thi Street and Nguyen Van Cu Street... In which, immediately arranging capital for urban construction to handle the Nai Bridge area, ditch No. 2 and Nguyen Van Cu Street.

Areas that often flood during heavy rains in Vinh City. Graphics: Lam Tung

The city assigned responsibility to the People's Committees of wards and communes to arrange shock troops to collect garbage, tree branches and leaves, and clear the flow before heavy rains (3-4 people on one road often flooded)...

Propaganda and mobilization of people to participate in preventing flooding in the city such as not building sidewalks that block the flow of gutters; not littering, not dumping soil and sand into manholes and wells; and participating in collecting trash and tree branches before heavy rains with the forces of wards and communes.

Wards organize dredging of water collection pits along inner-city roads. Photo: Hong Quang

PV:Can you comment on the city's flood prevention capacity in the next few years?

In addition, with the attention, direction, support and assistance of the province and specialized departments at the provincial level, it is hoped that flood prevention work in Vinh city will gradually improve.
PV:Thank you very much, comrade!