Fishing village on Lam River is anxious during the stormy season
About 13 fishing households often anchor their boats at the foot of Yen Xuan iron bridge, forming a fishing village. Every time the rainy and stormy season comes, they are worried that their boats will sink, and the men in the village have to stay up all night to keep watch.
Desire to go ashore
At noon on September 19, when storm No. 4 was approaching the Central coast, although the eye of the storm was forecast not to hit Nghe An, Ms. Pham Thi Thuy (35 years old, Xuan Lam commune, Hung Nguyen), still carefully packed her belongings and moved them to the small attic. The property in the house, besides the refrigerator, was mostly just clothes, blankets, pillows, etc.
“It’s been raining so hard these past two days, I’m scared. Last year, the Lam River rose and submerged half the house,” said Ms. Thuy, pointing to the marks on the wall left after the flood receded years ago.
Ms. Thuy is one of the residents offishing village, living right at the foot of the Yen Xuan railway bridge. In this hamlet, Ms. Thuy's family is considered the most well-off, because they have a small house by the river to take shelter in during storms. Most of the other households still have to live in small, cramped boats.
“Many people think that we are river people, good at swimming, so we are not afraid of storms. Actually, we are very afraid. That is why my husband and I have worked hard and borrowed money from the bank to buy land and build a house on the shore. Although we still owe a lot to the bank, we hope that our children will not have to follow in their parents' footsteps and drift with the water anymore,” said Ms. Thuy.
Ms. Thuy is from Ha Tinh, and has been a fisherman for generations, living on a boat moored on the other side of the Lam River. Her husband, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Toan (44 years old), is originally from Quang Binh, but was born on a boat in this fishing village. Like many others in the village, both she and her husband are illiterate. Although they are people of the river, in recent years, Ms. Thuy has suffered the pain of losing relatives to flood waters. That is also the motivation for the couple to strive to go ashore so that their children can go to school, changing their lives after many generations of being fishermen.
“Three years ago, my father, who was only 52 years old, drowned right in the fishing village. He was a very good swimmer, but that day while rowing his boat to a neighbor’s house to play, it encountered a strong wind and capsized. He had also been drinking alcohol and drowned. When people discovered it, it was too late. Not long after, my younger brother’s 18-month-old nephew also drowned right in this river. That day, he fell from the boat and the adults did not know,” Ms. Thuy sadly said.
“We are tired of this job, we want to go ashore and find a job, but we are illiterate. Therefore, we can only hope for our three children. Even if we have to borrow money from the bank, we still have to send our children to school. I am better than my husband, who used to go to school for three days, but before he could even learn what letters looked like, he had to quit and go back to the boat to look after his younger siblings while his father fished. Not long ago, I applied for a job at a company, but when they interviewed me and asked me to read, I didn’t know how to read, so they didn’t accept me,” Thuy said, adding that the couple’s current wish is to be recognized as a near-poor household, to reduce some of the costs for their children to go to school.
Every time there was a storm, Ms. Thuy and her children would go into the dike to take refuge. Meanwhile, Mr. Toan still risked his life to stay on the small boat.
This boat is the "fishing rod" of the whole family. If not watched carefully, it will sink. That is why, no matter how big the storm is, all the men in the village will stay in the boat, staying up all night to watch. Because the boat is small, heavy rain will pour water down, if not constantly bailing out the water, it will sink. Although knowing this is dangerous, but accepting it. If the boat sinks, it is very difficult.
Mr. Nguyen Van Toan - resident of fishing village in Xuan Lam commune
Worry about the rainy and stormy season
Next to Thuy's house is the small house of Mr. Nguyen Xuan Quang (66 years old), one of the oldest residents of the neighborhood. It is called a house but it is actually a cramped shack, patched together with corrugated iron sheets and tarpaulins that Mr. Quang begged for and collected along the road. Every time the flood season comes, the entire house will sink into the riverbed. His wife is sick and cannot walk, so each time, Mr. Quang has to carry her onto a boat to take refuge.
“It was very scary. One year, the water rose very quickly. Luckily, the neighbors helped, otherwise we would not have had time to evacuate. It was raining heavily, and the old couple huddled in the rocking boat, unable to sleep. I know how to swim, so even if the boat sank, there was still a chance, but my wife was in danger because she could not move,” said Mr. Quang.
In the small shack, all the objects that can hold water such as basins, pots, etc. have been used by Mr. Quang to collect rainwater. The corrugated iron sheet above is torn, every time it rains, the house is flooded with water. “I am scared, but there is no other way,” Mr. Quang said.
Talking about the fishing village, Mr. Quang said that, up to now, the village has often been called "Thai village". Because most of the residents in the village are from Quang Trach (Quang Binh), then migrated to Thailand to make a living. In 1954, following the call of the country, these households returned and chose the Lam River section through Hung Nguyen as their anchorage. Because they were busy making a living following the water, up to now, the children in the village have hardly been able to go to school. In recent years, some households have started sending their children to school, hoping to escape the poor village.
During these stormy days, the small house of Mr. Nguyen Van Viet (44 years old) is packed with people coming to stay. Because in the fishing village, besides Mr. Quang and Ms. Thuy and her husband, only Mr. Viet's family has a house built on the riverbank as a shelter. The house is only about 40m2, was built roughly, but Mr. Viet's family alone had 10 members. A few years ago, the eldest son got married, had children, and also lived in the house to follow in his parents' footsteps. In addition, Mr. Viet and his wife also had to raise two mentally ill younger siblings who could not take care of themselves. The house was already cramped, but now with more neighbors coming to stay, it became even more cramped.
“People stay indoors, but their eyes must still be on the boat anchored below. If the boat sinks, they can still go down to save it. At night, we men still have to stay in the boat, only women and children go ashore to avoid it,” said Mr. Viet, adding that in recent years, aquatic resources have become increasingly scarce, and the lives of fishermen have become more and more difficult. Many households want to send their children to work abroad, but it is difficult because most of them have very little education and do not have assets to mortgage to borrow from banks. Therefore, generation after generation, they have had to stay in this fishing village.
Every rainy season, the local government assigns officials to monitor the situation in the fishing village; if the water level rises, they will have to force people to evacuate into the dike immediately. In reality, many people are still very subjective, and are reluctant to leave their belongings, so they often stay on their boats to keep watch.
Mr. Nguyen Canh Toan - Vice Chairman of Xuan Lam Commune People's Committee
While the fishing village people are longing for a "land to settle down", a few hundred meters away there is a resettlement area that has been completed but is "deserted". Because it has been built for too long, people no longer have a real need. It is a resettlement area for people in the Lam River landslide area in Hamlet 9, Xuan Lam Commune. The project was approved by the Provincial People's Committee in 2011, with 100 residential plots (each plot is 315m2).2) located inside the Lam River dike to arrange new accommodation for 100 households in flood-prone and landslide-prone areas outside the dike; in which, the investment cost is more than 24.2 billion VND from the budget.
Although it was an urgent project, after 10 years, it was not until 2021 that the project was completed and handed over to the locality. However, since then, the resettlement area has remained abandoned, with no households living there. According to households that have registered to receive land, due to the long wait, most of them have spent money to raise their houses to cope with the floods. Therefore, up to now, not many people have the need to go to the resettlement area.
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