Hundreds of households in the central region continue to live in unsafe and highly landslide prone areas along riverbanks, coasts and mountains, as resettlement homes have either not been built or those that are built have no basic amenities like water and electricity.
The Trien Dong Nui Be resettlement complex in Nghia Hanh District in the central province of Quang Ngai was built way back in 2010. Till now only a few households have shifted into their new homes there because the complex has no electricity, fresh water supply or farming land.
Similarly, the Bung Village resettlement complex in Son Ha District was built in 2010 for households living in landslide prone areas. But even three years after completion there is no electricity and fresh water connection there.
About 40 houses are now lying abandoned as residents have moved back to their old quarters.
Dinh Thi Thanh Huong, deputy chairman of the People’s Committee in Son Ha District, said that the district has proposed to investors to complete all essential infrastructures in the resettlement complexes at the earliest so that residents can move into their new homes. So far there has been no response from the investors.
Do Ky An, head of the provincial Department of Rural Development, said that from October 2009 to June 2010, the Department of Planning and Investment had approved six projects to build resettlement homes in Ly Son, Nghia Hanh, Son Tinh, Tay Tra and Ba To District at a total cost of VND19 billion (US$905,000).
These projects were meant to provide new safer accommodation to 357 households living in landslide prone areas. But now the projects have run out of money and the above two resettlement areas lie discarded for lack of basic electricity and fresh water supply.
The 400-year-old village of Thai Duong Ha is located along the coastline in Hai Duong Commune in Huong Tra District of Thua Thien-Hue Province. High waves have eroded strips of land leaving the topography of the village in a huge C-shape formation.
Huynh Ne, 63, a local village resident, said that in the storm season, high tides and strong winds wash away hundreds of meters of land from the edge of the village.
Local residents are thus in dire need to evacuate the village and move to a new safer location as soon as possible.
Phan Thanh Hung, head of the Dyke Management and Flood and Storm Prevention Committee in Thua Thien-Hue Province, believes that 5,700 residents are being affected by coastal landslides.
Since 2007, erosion has occurred along 7.8 kilometers of the coastline. The province has invested VND40 billion (US$1.9 million) to resettle 900 households from landslide prone areas but nearly 1,000 households still need to be relocated.
