Hot weather "swallows" the skin, mud in red soil
The Long Thanh airport project is a national key project, located in the area of 6 communes of Long An, Binh Son, Cam Duong, Suoi Trau, Bau Can, Long Phuoc, in Long Thanh district, the old Dong Nai province (now Long Thanh commune, the new Dong Nai province).
The airport super project with a total area of 5,000 hectares is a project that was planned many years ago and more than 4,000 households in the project area subject to white clearance are also in the mood to be relocated soon to give land to the country's socio-economic development project.
On an early day of the rainy season in 2020, during the coordination to propagate to people in the relocation and site clearance of the Long Thanh Airport Project with the Office of the Dong Nai Provincial People's Committee, we went to the core communes of the project to record people's lives.
However, the entrance process encountered many obstacles because most of the people lived in mixed-use rubber forests with red soil, making it extremely difficult to travel. After just one rain, many roads to villages and hamlets were isolated due to flooded water and mud, and motor vehicles could not enter the hamlet.
Our group entered Suoi Trau commune, through a red and muddy road after a heavy rain, with old rubber forests on both sides of the road, with no one to take care of them. However, the "left-it" 16-seat car could not last long when it reached a section of mud, the wheels were muddy and could not move. At this time, the coach had to mobilize everyone to get down and push the car.
Not giving up, another time, we rode a motorbike to go to the people of the core area of the project and also encountered rain. The only road to Suoi Trau hamlet continues to be isolated, at this time the reporter has to leave the car at the water shop to walk for kilometers to record the lives and thoughts of the people...
At the Long Thanh airport construction site, after rainy nights, hot days to skin burning... The airport after clearing the site of an area of 5,000 hectares is an empty area, large and completely red soil. From afar, seeing the wheelchairs and road users as small as a black spot, traveling for kilometers without a shade of green trees, reporters can only expose themselves.
During the reporting process, the reporter also followed the working group of the old Long Thanh district and Vietnam Airports Corporation (ACV), climbed passes, wade streams, and bang caosu forests to record the handover of clean land so that the contractor could immediately carry out the construction of the site clearance and drainage packages.
Mr. Nguyen Van Tam - a construction worker in the area of package 5.10 - Long Thanh Airport Passenger Terminal - shared: "In addition to the sunny and strong windy construction site, I wear a very thick shirt, wrapped a towel and covered my face but still burned. Every time, I bring a large cup of water and buy more ice to drink to cool down, but it still does not cool down. The weather at the construction site is hot and sunny at times over 40 degrees Celsius, at the construction site everyone looks black.
Working at almost all points of the project
Since the Prime Minister inspected the Long Thanh Airport Project in 2022, the project has made rapid progress, the shape of the passenger terminal has gradually become clear.
An officer of the Long Thanh Airport Project Management Board shared with a reporter from Lao Dong Newspaper that: "Long Thanh Airport is changing every day, after only a few days of not going to the construction site, I have seen many differences".
As the Long Thanh Airport Project entered construction on package 5.10 of the passenger terminal, the work of reporters became more and more difficult due to the safety requirements of the project, of officers, engineers, and workers.
According to the request of the Long Thanh Airport Project Management Board, every time a reporter from Lao Dong Newspaper travels, there are staff members of the management board, because at the Long Thanh Airport Project, the quality of the project as well as ensuring labor safety are always given top priority. Reporters were taken to work in component project 1 - Headquarters of state management agencies; Workers' scene at the highest floor of the 123m high air traffic control tower of component project 2 - Works serving flight management; Work on all floors of Long Thanh airport passenger terminal in component project 3...
At the entire construction site of the Long Thanh Airport Project, the units are still maintaining the construction progress with hundreds of deployment teams, mobilizing nearly 13,000 experts, engineers, workers, laborers and nearly 3,000 construction equipment to speed up the progress of the packages with the goal of basically completing the project by the end of 2025, putting it into operation and commercial exploitation in the first half of 2026 in accordance with the Prime Minister's request.
