Over the last few years, Ho Chi Minh City has put in place many effective measures to tackle the constant flooding caused by heavy rains and high tide in several parts of the City.
Wards 21 and 22 in Binh Thanh District used to be badly flooded after rains and high tide, but in the last two years, the City has constructed and upgraded the drainage system in these areas, resulting in cleaner and clearer streets now.
Huynh Thi Canh, a local woman in Ward 21, said that they are no longer pestered by flies and mosquitoes or stench which plagued them after every high tide or heavy rainfall earlier.
Two years ago, the crossroad between Le Hong Phong and 3 Thang 2 Streets in District 10 was regularly under knee-deep waters, which often overflowed into residents’ houses, which they had to then pump out.
Phan Thach Binh said that they now feel secure to do their business without a permanent threat of rising floodwaters.
During the 1980s and 1990s, waters from the smelly and garbage-choked Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal flowed into surrounding houses when there was rain or high tide. Several places were inundated under knee-deep floodwaters.
But this situation has been resolved now after the City carried out a project to dredge, broaden the canal and install box drains in the area.
HCMC has also tackled several regularly submerged spots in Districts Thu Duc, Go Vap, Tan Phu, 1, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 12, where new drainage systems have been installed and the road surface has been raised.
The Steering Center for Urban Flood Control Program has also conducted measures to deal with flooding for both short term and long term at 60 other spots, and put 123 out of 172 drainage routes into operation to ease inundation along 235 kilometers.
The first phase of cleanup projects along Ben Nghe-Tau Hu, Doi and Te Canals and construction of the dyke stretch along the right bank of Saigon River have been completed to solve flooding in the City.
