Flood returns!
by Nathalie Quy Thao Nguyen
I had heard that the recent flood in Hue was the worst flood in the recent history of
Vietnam. As the plane started to descend into Phu Bai airport, I looked out my window, not
knowing what to expect. The rice paddies were saturated with water, but it appeared as
though the water had pretty much retreated. It had been about three weeks since the flood.
Although I was visiting Vietnam as part of the Medical Mission, Project Vietnam team, I
had planned on arriving two weeks prior to the Mission in order to visit family. With
recent news of the flood, I had brought with me extra medicine and clothes to dispense.
As soon as I met my aunt at the airport, stories about the flood
started to come to life. My aunt had been very fortunate; the water had only risen to
about half a meter on her property, with most of the water confined to the courtyard
around the house. The actual house itself, elevated by three steps, had been spared from
any damage. Water was roaring down the street, just outside the front gate to her house.
Those around her were much less fortunate. From her balcony, she saw her neighbors
climbing to their roofs. The flood had filled their homes with muddy water, and the top of
their window was barely visible. My aunt yelled at them to swim towards her house. They
did, and she propped a ladder on the side of her building. She heard more neighbors
screaming for help, and she told them to swim towards her house. They did not know how to
swim. She told the first neighbor to grab a rope and swim to the other house. Both
families eventually found shelter in her home. More and more families came to her home.
She was running out of rice, and she knew more people would come. It would take days for
relief efforts to get underway and provide her neighbors with any kind of food or water.
With the equivalent of about $150 on hand, she sent two men to buy rice. They carried with
them a large plastic container, similar to a trash container.
On the street, the water reached up to their chests. They found a store whose
rice supply hadn't been completely destroyed by the flood. They filled their tub with
rice, and once they brought it home, starting distributing it. Over several days, as the
water retreated, word began to spread that my aunt was distributing rice. Almost one
thousand people lined up by her front gate. Family and friends from overseas and within
Vietnam called my aunt, offering financial assistance.
In other parts of the community, people sought shelter wherever they
could find a two-story building. Marketplaces and school buildings turned into relief
shelters. People shared their stories with one another. Some had been trapped two days on
their roofs without food or water. The ferocity of the flood had knocked down building
structures, injuring or killing family members. Others were injured as they tried to climb
to a safe place. There had been no time to think about salvaging food or water. Homes by
the river, often made of wood and bamboo, had been completely destroyed as the water level
rose. National monuments from the days of the Nguyen dynasty were damaged. Families living
on small wooden boats found themselves rising with the water. Over five hundred lives had
been lost. In some instances, entire families had been killed.
Although the water had retreated by the time I reached Hue, the flood
had left its mark throughout the community. In every home we visited, water marks could be
seen on the walls, some as high as two meters. Remnants of homes could be seen by the
riverbank. Sides of houses had completely collapsed. Dirt roads were muddy and difficult
to traverse. I visited several schools and discovered that children's notebooks (young
school children do not own textbooks, just notebooks containing material they wrote down
in class) had been severely damaged or destroyed. When a ten year-old schoolboy was asked
what happened when his notebook become soaked in water, he said his mother laid the
notebook in the sun for it to dry. Food, medicine, and clothes had been provided to
victims of the flood, but schoolbooks simply had not been a priority. A child's notebook
costs 1400 Dong, the equivalent of 10 cents. We bought the child's school 1000 notebooks.
The principal and young teachers were visibly emotional. With five hundred dollars my
parents and sisters had given me to help the flood victims, an additional three thousand
notebooks and two thousand pens were provided to several schools in Hue. Warm blankets
were given to the neediest of children. My aunt continues to distribute rice, bought with
money pledged by family and friends. Hue was already one of the poorer cities in Vietnam
before the flood. The recent
damage to property and crops created lasting damage for years to come.
Although immediate relief has already been provided, there is deep concern in the
community that in several months, when crops fail and rice supply becomes depleted, people
will once again go hungry. The medicine and clothes I had brought with me were distributed
within my first day in Hue. Much more needs to done, and I promised to myself to continue
to advocate for direct assistance upon my return to the USA.
Because of the ongoing flood disaster in Central Vietnam, Project Vietnam added another
dimension of assistance to affected areas to its work this year. Here follow reports from
team members.
Dr. Mai-Khanh Tran is a veteran member of our medical mission team and participated with
SAP-VN in a relief effort to Hue, Quang Tri & Da Nang. Nathalie Nguyen is a 3rd year
medical student at UCLA, and joined the group for the first time.
..............................................................
Greetings from Central Vietnam where I had just finished a whirlwind tour of the region
both for immediate relief work and assessment for future assistance.
The situation in Hue can simply be described as dismal. From the plane, we could see that
most of the countryside is still submerged in water. At the hardest hit areas, we could
see remnants of houses washed away, walls ripped open, roads caved in by the flood.
Unfortunately, the current destruction is still ongoing as the area was hit by another
rainstorm almost as bad as the one in October.
I arrived in Hue with the SAPVN (Social Assistance Program for Vietnam) team, and
immediately set out to visit the hardest hit districts with our local counterparts, the
Catholic Sisters who run the free clinic, Kim-Long, and the Buddhist Monks who operate a
similar clinic, Dieu De. The Sisters and the Monks together passed out 1 million dong to
each of the 152 families that either suffered a death in the family or had their home
destroyed by the flood. SAPVN members served as monitors of this process.
In Quang Tri, we also distributed a similar amount directly to the 53 families and
provided assistance to three local schools in terms of books, supplies, and furniture.
Everywhere we went, we heard heart-wrenching stories of personal sufferings as well acts
of human courage and pleas for more help. The one bright point in this gloomy affair was
the cooperation we saw among the various groups doing flood relief. It is a bright day for
Hue when the Sisters and the Monks can work together hand-in-hand with Viet Kieus.
We visited the free clinics, Kim Long and Dieu De. The flood-line was visible on all the
walls in both clinics. Some medicines were wasted, and the whole supply of dental
instrument and the X-ray machine in Kim Long were destroyed. We gave each clinic US$2,000,
half of which was donated by the Vietnamese Medical Association in the USA.
We personally experienced some of the flooding ourselves as the area was once again hit by
a heavy rainstorm. The roads we traveled to get out to the remote villages completely
flooded over once we had passed. In fact, all flights were cancelled from Hue and the
train stopped running. Hai Van pass became blocked and the team was left stranded one
night in Hue. That night, the streets in Hue completely got submerged under water and we
witnessed the river water coming into the first floor of our hotel. Needless to say, some
of our team members did not get much sleep that night.
Fortunately, we all were able to leave Hue the following day but could not make it pass Da
Nang as the whole area south of it to Binh Dinh was flooded over. Highway one was closed
temporarily and the train stopped running in this area.
We left Central Vietnam with the haunting feeling that more suffering is to come to this
already-unfortunate area. We also believe that much more assistance is needed and the road
to recovery will be long and hard. We are awaiting words from our group in the US to see
whether we need to return to Quang Nam/Quang Ngai to do further flood relief before our
eventual return to the States. More updates to come.
Flood Relief Mission with SAPVN
By Mai-Khanh Tran, MD