Throngs of people poured to construction material stores to buy new tiles in the central Vietnamese province of Quang Ngai on Thursday morning after thousands of houses were unroofed by Storm Molave, causing a surge in the item price.

The tile price increased from VND16,000 (US$0.7) to VND25,000 ($1.07) apiece, according to Nguyen Thi Thanh Nga, a local woman in Hanh Thinh District who waited for four hours to buy 40 tiles.

Like Nga, Pham Thi Phuong, another local woman from Son Tinh District, had to search for tiles at several stores as most of them ran out of stock.

Finally, she managed to buy 50 tiles at a shop in Tu Nghia District.

“The tile price here was only VND18,000 [$0.77] apiece earlier in the morning, then rose to VND20,000 [$0.86], and now VND25,000. It is much more expensive than the normal price, but now people are competing to buy as small shops are all out of stock,” Phuong said.

But not everyone could afford the expensive tiles.

Le Quang Nghia, a local man from Mo Duc District, collected fragmented but usable tiles abandoned by stores as he could not pay for tiles sold for VND35,000 ($1.5) apiece, after the VND25,000 type had been sold out.

Nghia said he would temporarily fix his roof with the collected tiles and wait until the price returns to normal ranges.

According to construction material sellers, it was not the case that the tile price went from lower ranges to VND25,000 and even VND35,000 apiece, but the tiles were available in a variety of prices and quality levels.

The high demand for tiles at lower prices made them sell quickly. As a result, only tiles at high prices were left.

Meanwhile, tiles sold for VND8,000-12,000 ($0.34-0.52) apiece remained stable.

Nguyen Duc Huy, deputy director of the Quang Ngai Department of Industry and Trade, confirmed that there was a slight rise in tile prices after his market surveillance team inspected local stores on Thursday morning.

As many as 53,390 houses in Quang Ngai were unroofed as of 5:00 pm on Wednesday after Storm Molave had made landfall in central Vietnam from Da Nang City to south-central Phu Yen Province. The number was likely higher as of Thursday morning.

Quang Ngai chairman Dang Van Minh requested related agencies to strictly prevent tile prices from being inflated.

Construction material stores taking advantage of the situation to sell tiles at high prices will be stringently handled, Minh said.

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