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The isolated lives of bridgeless villages in Vietnam

The isolated lives of bridgeless villages in Vietnam

Monday, April 04, 2016, 10:28 GMT+7

People living in two villages in the south-central Vietnamese province of Quang Nam have been putting their lives at risk on a daily basis by crossing a fierce river using only the smallest of boats.

Nearly 20 years ago the lives of ten people were taken from the Second Village of Hiep Hoa Commune, Hiep Duc District, as they tried to complete the very same crossing.

Vo Quang Binh, former chief of Hiep Hoa police and a survivor of the accident, recalled the terror when he spoke to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters.

Around 11:00 am on October 27, 1996, Binh boarded the boat along with 35 other passengers, most of whom were farmers, vendors, and students crossing the Thu Bon River to reach the commune’s center.

Tragically, in the middle of the river, the boat was capsized by strong currents, resulting in the drowning deaths of ten people, including two children and one heavily pregnant woman.

The victims’ bodies were only found several days later, many kilometers downstream from the site of the accident.

Van Ba Thanh, 62, was a member of the supervisory board of Hiep Hoa Cooperative at the time, and took a canoe in search of the victims himself.

“On the ninth day”, Thanh begun, “I found the body of my 6-year-old grand-daughter,” holding back tears as he spoke. “Her body was bloated like an over-baked loaf of bread, and we had to use banana bark to lift her into the canoe.”

“Many others were unable to find their relatives’ bodies until the twelfth day, by which time they had decomposed almost completely, and were floating down the river’s delta.”

A grievous atmosphere enveloped the entire commune, and for many days after, its residents refused to cross the river, still haunted by the tragedy.

“Eventually people had to start crossing the river again, because their lives depended on it. They worked and studied and traded on the other side, so it couldn’t be helped,” Thanh said.

Pham Thi Dung, a girl who lived in the Second Village, lost her life to the river in a different way.

Dung had complained of feeling a pain in her chest and was having difficulty breathing on the evening of November 18, 2009, and so was carried by her parents to the dock to hail a boat, only to find that the ferryman had stopped working.

Desperate, her mother ran barefoot along the craggy coastline in search of the ferryman, returning two hours later, but it was already too late. Dung drew her final breath just as they reached the other side.

“I have never stopped blaming myself,” Dung’s mother Hien said, hitting her own chest as she recalled the death of her daughter. “If there had been a bridge, we could have got her to the hospital in time!”

Dung’s death is just one more among many others caused by the lack of a bridge to cross the river.

Pham Van Bich, a ferryman who lives in the Second Village, said he had had many sleepless nights carrying villagers across the river in case of emergency in the middle of the night.

“It’s nowhere near enjoyable,” Bich said of his job. “If there were a bridge, I would lose my job, but it would be easy to find something else to do, and the villagers would have a chance to improve their lives.”

Luong Phuoc Nghia, chairman of the People’s Committee of Hiep Hoa Commune, said the people of the First and Second Village have suffered a lot because of the isolation of the river.

“Everything they grow and raise is sold at only half the price to merchants,” Nghia said.

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