Locals in the south-central province of Binh Dinh blocked part of Vietnam’s National Highway 1 for over seven hours on Friday to protest against a local seafood factory project over environmental concerns.

Around a hundred people, most of whom women and children, started gathering on the highway through Phu My District at around 9:00 am, according to the district’s deputy chairman Nguyen Van Dung.

The locals, who sat side by side to form a human barricade just outside the headquarters of Phu My administration, demanded that the district administration scrap project to develop a seafood processing facility over worries of environmental damage, Dung said.

The incident led to severe congestion on the National Highway 1, a lifeline road that runs from Vietnam’s northern border with China to its southernmost province of Ca Mau.

Regular flow of traffic was only resumed at 4:00 pm the same day when the crowds agreed to disband following talks with authorities.

The seafood factory in question is part of a fisheries industrial cluster in Phu My, the planning for which has been approved by the provincial administration, said Binh Dinh chairman Ho Quoc Dung.

The plant itself is developed by a private enterprise which has been leased a plot of land within the industrial cluster, Dung said.

However, construction of the facility had been ordered to halt for further environmental evaluation weeks prior to Friday’s incident, he added.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!