Residents in Ho Chi Minh City were outraged by repeated graffiti vandalism at Nguyen Huu Canh Underpass in Binh Thanh District as the structure had just got a makeover.

Having unwanted graffiti removed and being coated with non-stick paint a few days ago, the underpass was defaced with graffiti again on Monday morning.

A group of Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper reporters was traveling through Nguyen Huu Canh Underpass at 2:30 on the same day when they discovered graffiti written in black marker.

The ink of graffiti was not yet dry at that time.

Many cyclists were shocked and criticized the act of vandalism at the underpass.

A local said that a vandal scrawled graffiti on a wall of the underpass when no one was present. Just within one hour, the wall was covered in graffiti, but the vandal was unknown.

“This is an act of vandalism, causing a waste of money,” said Dang Mai Nam, a 32-year-old resident of Binh Thanh District.

The wall had been whitewashed a few days earlier, but graffiti appeared on it again, he expressed his anger.

Workers on August 5 removed unwanted graffiti on the walls of the underpass and gave them a new coat of glossy white paint.

The makeover was part of a revamp project, scheduled to reach completion on August 20.

The project, implemented by the Road Traffic Infrastructure Management Center under the city’s Department of Transport, was aimed at revamping plenty of major bridges and public structures by using non-stick paint that allows easy graffiti cleanup at a total cost of some VND5 billion (US$197,400).

Numerous piers of the city’s first metro line, which stretches from Ben Thanh Market in District 1 to Suoi Tien Theme Park in Thu Duc City, are also a victim of vandalism.

In addition, several railcars of the metro line, which were kept at Long Binh Depot in Thu Duc City, were smeared with paint and graffiti in 2022 and 2023.

The graffiti vandalism prompted an investigation to identify the vandals and took considerable time to clean the graffiti off the metro cars.

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