HCMC at risk of fresh flooded areas

Many districts in Ho Chi Minh City have no drainage and drainage system in several districts have not been connected with others; therefore, the city is at the risk of having new flooded areas.
Lo Lu Street - the center of land price fever - has no sewerage system (Photo: SGGP)
Lo Lu Street - the center of land price fever - has no sewerage system (Photo: SGGP)
While the drainage system is not connected in the whole city, more new high-rise buildings and residential blocks are mushrooming. For instance, the 1 kilometer street No.8 in District 9’s Truong Thanh ward has ten land plots each 50 meter square. Even according to staff of Nha Viet Realty Company, 191 plots are located in the street. Rainwater and wastewater in new houses in the street are discharged into canals and fields because the street has no sewerage. 
Worse, small canals are gradually filled to be converted into plots to sell. The street is connected to Lo Lu street – center of the recent land price fever in HCMC’s outskirts. 2 kilometer Lo Lu street has no sewerage network yet real estate companies advertised to sell plots.
As per the People’s Committee in District 9,  150 streets in the district still have no drainage.

Like district 9, many streets in other outlying districts such as Binh Chanh, Hoc Mon and Cu Chi still have no drainage, although they are centers of land fever areas.

Director of the Water and Climate Change Center of the Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNUHCM)  Dr. Ho Long Phi, the city’s capacity in fighting flooding is limited so it can not thoroughly solve the flooding problems; plus new houses in new residential blocks are mushrooming, causing the issue to be worse and worse. 

Dr. Phi said the city’s limited budget has spent on many issues while collection from water payment is just enough for dredging canals land repairing or buying new things.
Accordingly, to improve the situation, the government should call for social contribution.  Enterprises should be assigned to fight flooding and the government will give open mechanisms to these enterprises to recover their investment. 

Furthermore, the government must charge infrastructure fee fully on real estate projects.

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