Shocked after the storm
On August 26, Ms. Nguyen Thi Toan (65 years old, residing in Nam Moi village, Co Dam commune, Ha Tinh province) was still shocked and sad when her 2-room wooden house had its roof blown off by storm No. 5, and the rainwater was plump in the house as well as outdoors.
The storm has been gone since last night, but the tarpaulin on the ceiling is still covered with rainwater, sometimes there is wind, water from the tarpaulin continues to pour down onto the floor as if it is releasing water from the water hoses from above.
In addition to the 2 wooden houses, a kitchen connecting the upper house's hips also had its damp roof blown off. The messy scene from the roof to the kitchen made Ms. Toan more tired, not knowing where to start cleaning.
"My husband has been passed away for 20 years. At that time, the 2-room wooden house that my husband built was also a large house in the village. The house has withered many rainy and stormy seasons. But this time, we lost to storm No. 5 because its destructive power is so strong," Ms. Toan shared.
When talking about her husband, Mrs. Toan looked up at her husband's altar at the top of the living room. There, many red tiles were blown away by the storm, everything on the altar was soaked with rainwater that made this woman cry.
Hope to repair the house to stabilize life
Ms. Toan shared that she has 5 children, of which 1 daughter is married to a long-distance worker, 3 sons are married, have a house to live in the same area as Co Dam commune, and the youngest son has just been working abroad in Taiwan for 2 months.
The cost of going abroad to work is nearly 200 million VND, which is all borrowed, so every month they are worried about paying bank interest. Ms. Toan herself is suffering from an illness and her poor health requires expensive treatment, making life more difficult.
Early this morning, when I returned from my son's house, I saw that my house had its roof blown off and damaged by the storm, and the inside was as wet as outdoors, so I felt extremely heartbroken. At that time, I could only cry, Ms. Toan confided.
Ms. Toan said that she is currently in poor health, she cannot do anything to earn an income anymore, every month the children give her money to spend.
Mrs. Toan also shared that she could live with her children. However, after living alone freely for a long time, she still wants the attention of the government to help her repair and re-roof the house soon so that she has a place to eat and live freely and comfortably as she has been for a long time.
According to a quick report from the Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention, Control and Search and Rescue of Ha Tinh province, by 9:00 a.m. on August 26, the impact of storm No. 5 had caused serious damage in many areas, from people, housing to infrastructure, agriculture, etc.
Regarding people, 1 person died in Kim Hoa commune due to fall while tying up a corrugated iron roof, 5 others were injured in the localities: Hoanh Son, Tien Dien, Mai Phu, Kim Hoa.
The whole province had 7 collapsed houses, 6,340 houses had their roofs blown off, and 1,129 houses were flooded. In addition, 47 schools, 5 medical facilities and 7 cultural works were damaged by storms.
The damage to agricultural production was huge, with more than 20,800 hectares of summer-autumn rice, 1,672 hectares of vegetables flooded, nearly 2,500 hectares of perennial trees and more than 15,800 trees broken.
The fisheries sector was also severely affected with an estimated 4,000 tons of damage. In the anchorage areas of Dan Hai, Loc Ha, Thien Cam, Hai Ninh... many fishing boats collided and drifted; in Cam Trung commune alone, 4 boats sank.
Regarding power infrastructure, 240 power poles were broken, 20,000m of power lines were broken, 64 communes/wards had no power. In addition, the storm caused a landslide of 200m of coastline, damaged 50m of river embankment, 1 drainage culvert, more than 3,700m3 of road slope, 4 bridges and 2 traffic culverts were damaged.
