While much of District 1 was able to stay dry on Sunday night, others such as Districts 6 and 11 were not as fortunate as a storm flooded major streets and knocked out power in some areas.
The flooding hit its highest point at about 7pm, leaving thousands of motorbikers stranded along inundated thoroughfares. And those were the lucky ones as many were seen falling off their bikes as their “vehicles sank into potholes hidden by the deep floodwater," according to Tuoi Tre.
Many homes and shops were also inundated with the floodwaters and residents spent hours bailing out water from their properties.
The HCMC Anti-Flooding Program Operation Center reported that rains measured as high as 112.9mm.
What plans HCMC has to prevent constant flooding are either outdated, incomplete, and generally a combination of the two.
The city’s main flood-prevention plan was devised in 2001 and “based on the assumption that the tidal peak would be 1.32m and rain with a 100mm rainfall would occur only once in five years. Now, tides can peak at 1.7m and rain with an over-100mm rainfall comes down twice a year,” Nguyen Hoang Anh Dung, vice director of the Steering Center for the Urban Flood Control Program told Tuoi Tre.
However, in the end, the issue seems to come down to funding:
“Calculations indicate that Ho Chi Minh City needs VND59 trillion (US$2.84 billion) for flood prevention projects in 2011-15 but only VND500 billion ($24 million) is released a year during the period.”
This is not to mention the fact that HCMC is one of the cities most threatened by climate change and is literally sinking due to over exploitation of groundwater.
It all makes one wonder – what’s the point of building multi-billion dollar real estate and infrastructure projects without a proper flood prevention system to keep them dry?
