Residents in Ho Chi Minh City have come up with ways to battle the chronic curse of inundation associated with downpours and high tides.

Inhabitants of the country’s economic hub have jokingly dubbed flood-hit occasions a ‘floating season,’ during which paddy fields in the Mekong Delta are submerged by water.

The season, characterized by inundation and high tides, has inflicted untold suffering on people in many affected areas.

At the onset of a downpour, Tran Van Minh, 87, who resides on Nguyen Quy Yem Street in Binh Tan District, tasks his children with moving their furnishings and valuables to their mezzanine, keeping a close eye on his young grandson and putting the two leashed dogs on a table. Well accustomed to knee-deep floodwater following downpours, it takes his children only half an hour to brace for the coming deluge.

Like many others, Minh’s family is victimized by an ‘endless race’ between road agencies – tasked with repeatedly increasing the elevation of the streets and alleys – and individuals who have to raise the foundation of their houses accordingly.

Three men in a Ho Chi Minh City district enjoy their “hu tieu” (rice noodles served with meat and broth) on stools amidst surging floodwater. Photo: Tuoi Tre

After a street in front of his home was elevated last year, meaning it is currently 0.5 meters higher than his foundation, his house and those surrounding are frequently flooded.

To prepare for this year’s rainy season, which typically begins around July each year and ends in October or November, his son has bought bricks and cement and plans to erect a partition, meant to impede the flow of water.

Loan, Minh’s daughter-in-law, and his grandson began to operate a drainage pump to force the surging liquid out.

“Our pump works all day during torrential rains. In serious cases, we even borrow another pump from our neighbors,” Loan revealed.

Minh usually sleeps downstairs, but during the ‘floating season,’ he and his children and grandchildren share a 10m² mezzanine at night.

He points to a marker on the wall, explaining that his foundation should be elevated to that height if his house is to be flood-free.

“If so, we could sit instead of standing inside our ‘bunker,’” he said.

Loan places small stools in deeply-inundated areas and walks on them with the finesse of an acrobat to get around their house.

In case of night downpours, the octogenarian does not sleep until 10:00 pm, while his two children take turns to watch over the pump.

Many residents in areas prone to constant high tide-related inundation have long resorted to ‘evacuating’ their furnishings and electrical appliances elsewhere to ensure they remain in working order and do not trigger electric shocks.

Drainage pumps are instrumental in city dwellers’ fight against flooding. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Nam, a resident on Nguyen Huu Canh Street in Binh Thanh District, has hung most of her utensils and fittings in shelves or walls, whose bases have turned mossy due to the constant exposure to floodwater over the years.

Sacks of sand have also been instrumental in households’ fight against flooding.  

Compact sacks, weighing around 10 kilograms each, form ‘dykes’ to cushion houses from the deluge.

On an afternoon last month, Ap Chien Luoc Street in Binh Tan District, another of the city’s flood hotspots, looked as forlorn as a hamlet in the Mekong Delta – a region highly vulnerable to flood.

A young mother was feeding her toddler who was delighted at the sight of floodwater. 

Le Thi Thao Trang, 36, revealed that her family arranges their belongings compactly so that they can be quickly moved upstairs when floodwater surges, even when it is not raining.

Her father is entrusted with updating his family on weather forecasts to allow them enough time to get ready.

The area near a canal on Phan Anh Street in Tan Phu District often gets deluged, making it hard to tell the canal from the alley.

Residents there erect marking poles to keep people from tripping.

Inhabitants on An Duong Vuong Street in District 8 lament that in times of sudden downpours, they scurry into the streets in panic or take shelter in houses with higher foundations.

Nguyen Thi Lan, 25, in Binh Tan, and her parents often spend their night in relatives’ homes or at hotels, as their rented home gets inundated following torrential rains.

Meanwhile, households in Thanh Uy Residential Area in the outlying district of Thu Duc ingeniously have two valves, measuring one meter and 60 centimeters each, attached to their sewage pipes, in a bid to stall high tides.

Residents have also raised funds to build a long, tall dyke to impede the tides.

Those who cannot afford drainage pumps resort to other utensils to scoop floodwater out from their homes. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Several have also adopted folk measures long practiced by Mekong Delta farmers such as reinforcing land against erosion by placing stakes along canals.

Just like their suburban counterparts, inner districts are not immune to flooding either.

Le Van Dung, who lives on Nguyen Xi Street in Binh Thanh District, said that he sadly lost his much-loved dog flushed away by floodwater.

Dwellers in Thanh Da residential area in the same district do not fare any better.

Meteorological forecasting agencies have predicted that more deluges will occur by the end of this year, meaning city dwellers’ relentless ordeal is likely far from over.

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