People in flood-hit provinces struggle to piece together severely disrupted lives. (Photo: VNA) Yen Bai (VNA) - As people in flood-hitprovinces struggle to piece together severely disrupted lives, localauthorities are calling out for urgent help to deal with major damage sufferedby dykes, irrigation works and other construction projects.
After the floodwaters receded, like hundreds offamilies in Hat Luu commune, the seven-member family of Hoang Thi Quy are lost.
“It’s a disaster. My family spent thousands ofhours working on 5,000sq.metres of rice. But we’ve lost everything,” Quy said.
“There is nothing left. Now we have to pin hopeson the next crop, if the irrigation works are repaired soon,” she said.
Local administrations have been carrying out several measuresto help people overcome the flood’s consequences and restore production.
They are giving top priority to repair damagedirrigation works and provide water for people and crops.
Lo Van Chien, Chairman of Hat Luu commune’s People’sCommittee, said they were only able to restore irrigation works that hadsuffered slight damage. The severely damaged works needed financialassistance from the central government, either for major repairs or buildingnew ones, he said.
Pham Minh Quang, Director of Nghia Van CompanyLtd, which manages irrigation works in Yen Bai’s Van Chan, Tram Tau and Mu CangChai districts as well as the Nghia Lo town, said that so far they had repaired50 works that were slightly damaged, but another 65 works needed financialsupport from the province.
In Thanh Hoa province, residents of Thach Dinh communein Thach Thanh district returned home 10 days after they were evacuated to findthat most or all of their property and/or crops had been swept away.
Nguyen Thi Hao of the commune’s Tien Thanh villagesaid her family had harvested just four of 9ha of their rice crop before thefloodwaters came. However, the harvested rice had sprouted because they’d notbeen dried.
Pham Lam Dong, Secretary of the commune’s Party Committee,said the floods had destroyed 15ha of rice crops and 30ha of vegetables andkilled thousands of heads of cattle and poultry. Hundreds of houses and dikeswere severely damaged.
The local administration has instructed relevantoffices and people to clean wells and ensure water for daily lives andagricultural production as well as prevent from disease outbreak.
Some 150 families in the central province of Ha Tinhwere isolated for a week after the only bridge that connected them to the restof the world fell into the floodwaters.
Earlier last week, part of the Khe Buom Bridge inthe province’s Huong Tho commune in mountainous Vu Quang district alsocollapsed. The broken bridge has kept 150 households away from their dailyactivities of farming and trading.
Nguyen Hung Cuong, Vice Chairman of the commune’sPeople’s Committee, said local authorities had submitted a report todistrict authorities, asking for funds to repair the bridge, which had beensponsored by Hong Kong Oxfam in 2001.
He said nearly 800 families of the province willget funds from local authorities to construct flood-resistant houses.
The provincial People’s Committee has decided tofund 776 families in flood-prone areas to build houses that can withstandfloods. Of these 550 houses will be newly built and the remaining will undergoproper repairs.
Residents of Vu Quang, Duc Tho, Huong Son, HuongKhe, Can Loc, Cam Xuyen, Ky Anh, Thach Ha and Loc Ha districts, will benefitfrom the fund, which has thus far accumulated a total of 23 billion VND (over 1million USS) from the local budget and private sponsors.
Poor households and under-privileged families whoare social welfare recipients will benefit from the fund, which requires themto build house foundations higher than peak floodwater levels in the region.
Dang Ngoc Son, Vice Chairman of the provincialPeople’s Committee, said the fund wil🦂l help minimise the loss of lives andpropꦛerty in lowland areas. He said the fund allocation is part of theprovince’s sustainable poverty elimination policy. The money will be disbursed to residents late thismonth, with a request to complete works before August 2018.
