Hanoi Under Water: Understanding Flood Problem in Vietnam

By on July 20, 2010 • Topics: News

For those of you who do not live in Vietnam at the moment, a heavy rain fell on Hanoi since yesterday 7/13/10 at 8am lasted for 3 hours and left the 1000-years-old city submerged in 0.5 meter of water. Many businesses are on hold, all your favorite street restaurants are taking losses, people postpone their daily trips, and kids paddle their mini-boats through town with oblivious joy. Many locals are worried about the fate of the 1000-year birthday celebration of the capital city of Vietnam. Much investments are already in place, but now economic profit anticipations are disappearing because of flash floods like these.

(source: www.vnexpress.net)

(source: www.vnexpress.net)

Floods, unfortunately, are very common in Vietnam. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese are affected by blood and up to a thousand lives are lost causing huge grieves and financial losses. This is unnecessary because floods are preventable natural disasters. The experts are doing their part as many urban planning agencies in Vietnam are collaborating with many international consultant firms. But let us all understand the basics of the flood problem in Vietnam by looking at the graphs:

1) The amount of people affected and deaths caused by flood in Vietnam in the past 20 years. The level describes the amount of people affected and the size of the circles represents the death tolls.

(source: Gapminder.org)

And here is the list of the worst natural disasters in Vietnam:

(source: www.emdat.be)

To understand why flash floods create such a major problem in Vietnam, let’s look at the drainage system of Hanoi:

(source: www.alumni.tu-berlin.de)

As can be observed, Hanoi main water draining pipe is shared among many different systems. And with the rapidly increasing urban population, the usages of the residential and commercial properties also multiply at a fast pace and leave less draining capacity left for the rains and storms.

There are much to be done to upgrade the current infrastructures in Vietnam, but the hope is that more studies can be done for better city planning for the future metro centers in Vietnam. Maybe you can be one of those urban planners and architects!

The Author: Neil Nguyen

Neil is a mechanical engineer who aspires to make his own robot so he no longer needs to do house chores. At UC Berkeley, Neil studied in South Korea and Japan where he did research on the post-war development processes of Japan and Vietnam.

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  • Zteven

    Your people are still using talisman spell on people. This is my birthday 9-9-1976, I was on vacation on the place have no real freedom alot of harassment . Then went crazy Your people need to improve all of that shit. Same goes to Cambodian Your business related to the people here. You think by controling me you guys get what you want. Alot of kand and people are against you. Good luck it will never stop until you all dead.

  • Zteven

    You are lucky that your people have kids that is why it always rains. Flood no money. So figure ir out.