In the afternoon of September 19, recorded on An Duong Vuong street - the section in front of Ho Chi Minh City University of Education (Cho Quan ward), where a large broken tree branch hit a motorbike, killing one person, functional units are cutting down old branches that are at risk of breaking and falling, causing unsafety.
The cut branches are collected and transported away from the scene to ensure safety for people traveling through the area.
Previously, on the evening of September 18, a large branch of a tree broke, fell on a bus and then flew onto the road, hitting a motorbike carrying the couple. The incident caused the husband to be seriously injured and die later.
Old, dangerous trees are not easy to recognize
According to Mr. Le Van Tan - Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Technical Infrastructure Management Center (Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction), one of the major difficulties in urban green tree management today is that many trees are old.
Notably, some green tree systems are planted centrally in the same period. Therefore, the aging process also takes place almost simultaneously, creating great pressure for management, care and replacement.
However, it is not possible to simultaneously cut down and replace all old trees, because it will greatly affect the urban landscape. This must be done step by step, both ensuring safety and maintaining the green tree system on the streets.
The trees must be pruned, cut down and gradually replaced. If done at the same time, the urban landscape will be greatly affected," Mr. Tan said.
According to Mr. Tan, the risk of broken and broken branches in old trees cannot always be recognized by the naked eye.
For plants with pests and diseases, it is usually possible to observe some external signs to detect them. However, for old trees, the dangerous point may be deep inside the large branches. In some cases, the outside of the trunk and branches are still completely normal, even the inside is still thick, with no signs of being hollow.
Even climbing up to check directly or using ultrasound equipment is not guaranteed to detect the loss of connection between the wood fibers.
Mr. Tan compared this situation to a ripe banana on a tree, outside it is still normal but at some point it can fall down on its own. With urban green trees, the loss of connection inside branches can also cause branches to break suddenly, making it very difficult to accurately determine the time of occurrence.
Cutting down an old tree can take 3 days
Not only is it difficult to detect dangers from within, but the felling and replacement of old trees on the streets also face many obstacles due to the characteristics of urban infrastructure.
According to Mr. Tan, previously the Green Park Company invested in specialized vehicles to treat tree roots, with a cost of about 5 billion VND. However, this equipment is mainly suitable for park areas, where the ground is soft and there are few underground works.
When machinery is brought to the streets, the handling becomes more complicated because under the road surface there are many technical infrastructure systems such as electricity, water supply, drainage, watering systems, concrete and other underground works.
Therefore, many stages still have to be done manually, causing processing time to be prolonged. "In some cases, cutting down an old tree takes about 3 days," Mr. Tan said.
According to Mr. Tan, the management of green trees must therefore be implemented in the direction of proactively checking, pruning, handling branches that are at risk of unsafety and gradually replacing old trees, suitable to the actual conditions of the city.
