Landslide collapses newly built school
The new school collapsed. For nearly two months, teachers and students of Rang Chuoi school, part of Tra Tap primary boarding school, Nam Tra My district, had to return to the old temporary school so that teaching would not be interrupted.
Ms. Tra Thi Thu, in charge of Rang Chuoi school, said that heavy rains at the end of November 2024 caused part of Rang Chuoi school to collapse due to landslides, causing rocks and soil to flow into classrooms, damaging many school supplies, which have not yet been repaired.
Notably, this mountainous school was funded with more than 1.4 billion VND and was just inaugurated in early September 2024, replacing a degraded temporary school.
"The previous rain caused a landslide on the embankment behind the school. Therefore, we closed the school to move the classroom to the old school site (made of wood), waiting for a plan to build a dike. However, the landslide is getting bigger and bigger, and rocks and soil are continuously flowing down, making it difficult to fix.
Through the survey, the new school location is still at high risk of landslides, the district is calculating a plan to rebuild the new school on the old school site" - Mr. Ho Van Nip - Chairman of Tra Tap Commune People's Committee said.
This is not the first school to be threatened by landslides. Previously, Vo Chi Cong High School in Axan Commune, Tay Giang District, which cost 63 billion VND and had just been built, was affected by landslides, forcing 300 highland students to travel more than 40km to the district center to study for more than 4 years.
Teacher Nguyen Cong Tuoi - Principal of Vo Chi Cong High School said that at the end of 2020, the hill behind the school suffered a serious landslide, accompanied by large cracks that threatened to bury the school that had just been inaugurated a few months ago.
Over the past 4 years, despite receiving great attention from superiors, teaching and learning conditions at the temporary school are still very lacking, not enough for the school to fully exploit available teaching equipment.
"The hope of the teachers and students of the school is that the authorities will soon find a solution to the landslide embankment, ensuring safety so that teachers and students can return to their old school," said teacher Nguyen Cong Tuoi.
Choosing the wrong location, costing billions to build a dike
The mountainous area of Quang Nam has complex terrain, with little flatness, making the construction of infrastructure projects costly in terms of effort and money. This also requires careful surveying of the terrain before construction. However, in addition to the billion-dollar school that was abandoned due to landslides, even the Nam Tra My District Administrative Center is on the brink of landslides, threatened with being wiped out.
Speaking to Lao Dong, Mr. Tran Duy Dung, Chairman of Nam Tra My District People's Committee, said that after the storm at the end of 2020, part of the hill behind the headquarters of the Nam Tra My District Enforcement Agency collapsed. This area has been embanked, but the area behind the headquarters of the District Party Committee, District People's Committee, Court, Nam Tra My District Police... continues to have many cracks stretching nearly 1km.
Up to now, the crack continues to spread, when there is heavy rain, the risk of landslides is extremely high. Not only the administrative center area - where there are dozens of departments of the district, but the crack also directly threatens densely populated areas.
According to Mr. Dung, the most feasible solution is to build an anti-erosion embankment combined with solutions to lower the hill to create land for relocation, resettlement and urban space development. However, it will require a huge amount of funding.
“According to the estimate, to build both the embankment and the residential area, it will cost over 350 billion VND, which is a huge amount of money. In the immediate future, Quang Nam province has agreed to immediately provide 70 billion VND for the district to build an embankment to prevent landslides in this area,” said Mr. Dung.
Meanwhile, to overcome the landslide situation at Vo Chi Cong High School, Tay Giang District, the People's Committee of Quang Nam Province has approved project adjustments, adding more embankments to prevent landslides, with a budget of more than 58.8 billion VND. However, to date, relevant agencies have not yet selected the optimal embankment option.
