Hanoi is facing more serious flooding this year and the city's drainage system remains still unable to deal with heavy rains.
Hanoi submerged in water
Heavy rain on the night of May 24 submerged many streets in Hanoi. Thang Long Highway was under 60-70cm of water and the city’s entire traffic network was paralysed the next morning. Traffic on Tran Thai Tong and Vu Trong Phung saw flooding of 30-60cm. Some areas had still not recovered by 5pm.
Locals struggled to protect their belongings as the ground floors of many houses were also submerged. Minh Chien, a local in Cau Giay District, said he woke up at 2am because of shouts from neighbours. "Luckily my house is on the high ground. But my neighbours, they had to use sandbags and wooden planks to block the doors."
Deputy Director of the National Centre for Hydrometeorological Forecasting Le Thanh Hai said, "Similar heavy rains are projected to come in the next two days with rainfall ranging from at least 50mm to 100mm. Normally we have five to seven rains like that in a year."
Vo Tien Hung, director of Hanoi Water Drainage Company, said the heavy rain was taxing the city's incomplete drainage system. "Rainfall from 11pm to 5am reached over 270mm. We had sent out 1,500 employees with equipment to deal with the situation," he said.
According to Hung, employees were sent to clean up the streets so that rubbish wouldn't block sewers and pump stations had worked at 100% capacity. Yet it didn't help much.
Discussions in April focused on the lack of urgency in completing the Hanoi Drainage Project for Environmental Improvement project. The deadline had been extended several times. The first phase of the project was carried out from 1995 to 2007 and the second phase was started in 2008 and was expected to be completed in 2013. However, the project remains uncompleted.
Hung said the streets would not be flooded when less than 10cm of rain fell per square metre per two hours but the approaching rains were predicted to be much heavier.
