The People’s Committee of Da Huoai District in Lam Dong Province, located in Vietnam's Central Highlands region, on Tuesday confirmed that a durian farm on a hill where a recent deadly landslide killed four had been built on protected forest land.

The fatal landslide took place on Sunday on a section of National Highway 20 running through Bao Loc Pass, killing three traffic police officers and one local resident, all of whom were at a local police station that was destroyed in the landslip.

Following the landslide, the Lam Dong People’s Committee asked Da Huoai District to verify the legality of the durian farm and clarify the cause of the land collapse.   

Local authorities found that the land on which the traffic police station was built and part of the adjacent area were not protected forest land, according to decisions on land planning and a boundary for the police station which was approved in 2013 and re-stated in a similar decision in 2018.

The two-hectare durian farm, which butts up against land belonging to the police station, had, however, been developed on protected forest land.

Though the land is currently under the management of the Nam Huoai Protective Forest Management Board, Dang Thi Loc, a resident of Da M’ri Town under the district, has been using the land to grow fruit since 1985.

She cultivated avocado, jackfruit, and other fruit trees from 1985 to 2019.

In 2019, due to low productivity, Loc switched to growing durian trees and hired a man named Bi to care for the farm.

Satellite images from the past decade have also corroborated that the land has been used to grow fruit.

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