On the afternoon of July 4, Chairman of Can Tho City People's Committee Tran Van Lau chaired a meeting with departments, branches and localities on the flooding situation in the area.
According to the report of the Department of Construction, the rain on May 27 alone, the rainfall of nearly 67 mm, lasting more than 5 hours, caused about 20 roads and residential areas in Ninh Kieu district to be flooded 10 - 30 cm deep, some places lasting 4 hours. Some routes such as Hung Vuong, Cach Mang Thang 8, Tran Viet Chau, Nguyen Van Cu, area 91B were heavily flooded.
The cause was determined to be low terrain, outdated drainage systems, lack of synchronization, concreted ground, along with garbage congestion, height difference, and especially high tides combined with heavy rain, which often occur in the months of September and November every year.
Can Tho City is implementing the Can Tho Development Project using World Bank loans, including renovating the drainage system on 32 routes, building river embankments, tidal culverts, dredging 17 canals... Districts and towns also upgrade alleys and roads at high risk of flooding.
Vice Chairman of Ninh Kieu Ward People's Committee, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Anh, said that in recent times, the city has invested in many flood prevention works, especially in the central area, but flooding still occurs frequently, not only during the flood season but also during heavy rains. Flooding still recurs because the urbanization process causes a lack of connection to the drainage system, many residential areas have residents but have not yet completed infrastructure. The canals were silted up, many culverts were congested with garbage, domestic wastewater was discharged directly into the river, heavy rain in just 30 minutes caused flooding because the culverts were small and overloaded.
Mr. Anh suggested that the city should soon plan the overall drainage system, calculate infrastructure connection, and at the same time unblock canals and ditches, invest in wastewater treatment to protect the environment and serve river tourism.
In his speech, Chairman of Can Tho City People's Committee Tran Van Lau emphasized that the flooding situation causes public outrage and creates a bad impression on tourists. "The sewer water overflows onto the road, giving off a foul smell, people traveling miserably, and there is a risk of epidemics lurking. I personally witnessed students wading through water to school, it was heartbreaking," he said.
Mr. Lau also expressed concern that this situation is prolonged, even though there are large projects. Therefore, right after merging the local government at both levels, he spent time listening to opinions from departments, branches and wards to find out the causes and solutions.
According to Mr. Lau, there are 3 main causes of flooding: high tides, prolonged heavy rain and combining both. In addition, waste, cement, soil and rocks from the project are used to fill manholes and drainage culverts; The drainage culvert design is not synchronous, the system is small, lacking connection, leading to local flooding. The city has had projects to respond to high tides, but with the heaviest rain, when it coincides with high tides, there is still a lack of fundamental solutions.
The Chairman of the People's Committee of Can Tho City requested the Department of Agriculture and Environment to forecast water levels, synchronously operate the sewer and boat lock system, and assign duty when rain and high tides occur at the same time. The Department of Construction surveyed the entire drainage system, added manholes in necessary places to increase the ability to collect garbage. Localities have arranged funding, organized regular dredging of sewers, not left them in a backlog as at present, and at the same time increased propaganda to raise people's awareness of discharging waste in accordance with regulations.
The wastewater treatment plant alone has a capacity of 24,000 - 26,000 m3/day and night, while the actual demand is much higher. Mr. Lau requested to review and propose the construction of a second factory with a larger capacity, ensuring that all wastewater is treated before being discharged into the environment, avoiding river pollution, affecting people's health and developing tourism.
Mr. Lau called on cadres to boldly propose and take drastic action to solve the flooding problem. He announced that he would announce a reward of 50 million VND, award an unexpected certificate of merit and consider planning at a higher position for any cadre who came up with an effective idea to help the city fight flooding and limit flooding in the next few rains.
