On July 7, a video circulated on social media showing dozens of people on motorbikes, carrying sacks and gathering to collect lychees scattered along a roadside near a cemetery in Thanh Oai District, Hanoi.
Dozens of people gathered to collect lychees
The video quickly went viral, sparking a range of mixed opinions. Some condemned the act as taking advantage of someone in distress, while others believed the unattended lychees looked abandoned and weren’t valuable enough to imply intentional theft.
The 38-year-old truck owner, Bui Thi Lich, from the northern province of Phu Tho, was still shaken as she recalled the accident that happened around 11 pm on July 6.
The truck transporting lychees overturned in Thanh Oai (Video by D.T.H)
According to Lich, she and her two younger siblings were transporting lychees from Bac Giang when, upon reaching Thanh Oai District, fatigue overtook them, and their truck accidentally veered off the road into a ditch. Luckily, no one was seriously injured.
The three managed to get out of the truck and looked for help. While shaken and in pain, two kind young men helped call a tow truck to take the vehicle for repairs.
Over four tonnes of lychees spilt along the roadside in the dark. With no one they knew in the area, she and her two siblings followed the tow truck to a garage nearly two kilometres away for repairs.
Around 4 am, when she returned to the scene to collect the lychees, Lich was shocked to see many locals filling bags with her fruit and taking it away.
“I rushed over and begged, saying that this is my lychee, but no one listened. They kept picking as if I wasn’t there. I was completely helpless, and all I could do was stand there and cry,” Lich recalled.
Lich said she regularly transported lychees from Bac Giang to sell, and this was her fourth trip when the accident happened. The load was worth around VND 28-30 million.
