Living with floodwater in Ho Chi Minh City

Street-front business has been badly affected as no customer is coming to flooded areas.

Electric home appliances in inundated houses have been damaged by the floodwater.

Locals said that they feel tired from so many adverse changes in their daily activities the floodwater has brought about.

Residents of 44th Zone on 49th Street in the 6th quarter of Hiep Binh Chanh Ward in Thu Duc have discussed with one another the sudden accident of a man named Tran Huu Cuong on September 15.

He suffered an electric shock as a result of a short circuit triggered by rising floodwaters.

His daughter, Phuong Trang, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that he was hospitalized immediately after the incident.

She recalled that it happened on the evening of September 15, when her ground floor sank under floodwater.

“My father lifted the Earth God altar [which is always put on the ground] when floodwater was quickly rising,” Trang recounted.

“When he was touching it, he was electrocuted and fell down to the flooded ground and broke his shoulder bone.

“He was unconscious and rushed to the hospital.”

The altar is often decorated with colorful light bulbs empowered by electricity.

Trang said she witnessed the accident but was calm enough to wade through the floodwater to turn off the switch before carrying her father for emergency help.

A couple of days after the accident, Tuoi Tre visited the house and saw floodwater still covering the entire ground floor.

The bedrooms, living room, and restroom were all under stagnant water that emitted a nasty smell.

“We have had to turn on the fans day and night to dispel the smell but I’ve got a headache,” Trang confessed.

Many of her neighbors living on 49th Street were busy pumping water out to the street and blocking door thresholds with sand bags to prevent the water pouring in again.

In most houses in the area, the ground floors have been plagued by slimy mosses and stagnant floodwater for days.

“Yesterday I came home late and saw floodwater ruin most of my home appliances.

“I had to ask my company for a day off to do the cleanup and repair,” said Nguyen Duc Tuan, 45, a local resident.

Floodwater hits a market in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Tuoi Tre

His neighbor, Dang Hoang, put a bucket of clean water at one end of his bed.

“This bucket is for my daughter, my wife, and me to wash our feet before going to bed,” Hoang explained.

“The entire ground floor is flooded and you can’t walk from this room to another with your feet clean.

“My wife and I didn’t sleep last night because our bed was under floodwater and I had to put a chair on the bed for the daughter to rest.”

Another resident, Vu An, said he and his wife had to take a taxi to go to work and get back home because their motorbikes could not run on flooded streets.

“Floodwater is reaching over knees. I can only wear trousers and socks and shoes to go to work after wading through those streets on bare feet,” he admitted.

Huynh Ngoc Mai living in the second zone in Binh Tri Dong A Ward of Binh Tan District said she had to carry her children on her back to wade through hundreds of meters to get out of her area to school every morning.

A temporary solution for preventing floods resorted to by authorities was elevating road beds with sand and stones.

In that fashion, floodwater poured into houses along both sides of the streets, and locals had no choice but to raise their ground floor.

Nguyen Thanh Xuan, 59, in Binh Tri Dong Ward, said she has lifted the ground floor of her house three times in the last three years but she is still facing flooding.

Many shops and eateries in the flooded areas have been badly affected and had to temporarily stop their daily activities because of an absence of customers.

Those living in many residential areas in Tan Tao Ward of Binh Tan and Tan Kien Ward of Binh Chanh District said floodwater has lingered for ten days after a rain there.

Now, Ho Chi Minh City has tens of flooded areas like that although authorities said they have wiped out nearly 50 regularly inundated sites.