As reported by Lao Dong Newspaper, the recent prolonged flood caused a section of the wall about 15m long of Hue Imperial Citadel (Dang Thai Than Street, about 50m from Hoa Binh Gate) to collapse.
At the same time, in Phu Vinh commune, Hue city, the entire Cham Phu Dien tower - the only Cham tower still quite intact in Hue city - was completely submerged in water.
These are the damages and "harm" caused by nature, causing immeasurable consequences for cultural heritages in Hue city.
The collapsed 15m wall of the Imperial Citadel is part of the complex of Hue Monuments - a world cultural heritage recognized by UNESCO.
Cham Phu Dien Tower, since the end of 2001, has been ranked as a national architectural and artistic relic by the Ministry of Culture and Information (now the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism).
By mid-2022, this relic was established by the WorldKings World Record Alliance with the criteria: "The first excavated and preserved ancient Ch order tower made of ancient bricks submerged under coastal sand dunes in the world"; at the same time, the Vietnam Record Organization (VietKings) also recognized this as "Phu Dien Tower - The first ancient Ch order tower submerged under coastal sand dunes excavated and preserved in Vietnam".
It is worth mentioning that a collapsed wall and a Cham tower located in a flooded area were also submerged in water. In addition to the "incident" caused by natural disasters, there is also a serious warning: Heritage also has a limit to natural endurance, and if we do not change the way of protection, we will have to lose more.
For many years, heritage conservation work in Hue has been mainly operated according to the principle of "restoration" after damage and degradation. But in the context that heritages in Hue are mostly "old", combined with climate change, extreme floods as seen... this approach needs to change.
In addition to the methods of conservation, restoration, and embellishment... as before, the Hue Monuments Conservation Center and the cultural sector of Hue city need to invest in additional monitoring tools, early warnings, and building maps of heritage risks.
Each wall and foundation of Hue heritage architecture needs to be regularly monitored for moisture, tiltedness, groundwater pressure...
This approach will be new to Hue but is now very popular in the world. For example, Japan has an electronic sensor to track the most dynamic movements of the ancient city of Himeji. Or Angkor Wat in Cambodia is monitored for groundwater levels to avoid subsidence.
Or the Italian city of Venice responds to rising sea levels with the MOSE dyke system a solution combining modern hydrological engineering and urban planning as a whole.
The collapse of the wall and flooding of the Cham Phu Dien tower in Hue are very regrettable losses and "harm", but also an opportunity and a warning for us to look back on how to behave with heritage in the new context.
