In a devastating incident in Thanh Hoa province, over 50 tons of grouper raised in cages at the mouth of the Lach Bang River have perished due to prolonged heavy rainfall. This disaster has resulted in substantial financial losses for local fish farmers, with 14 households reporting damages amounting to billions of Vietnamese dong.

On September 22, Nguyen Van Tinh, a resident of Lien Thinh village in Hai Binh ward, was seen using a net to collect the dead fish from the cages. Having raised fish in this area for over a decade, Tinh stated that he had never witnessed such a massive loss before. Approximately one week prior, fish in nearly 100 cages owned by Tinh began to die sporadically, with the situation worsening dramatically from September 19, leading to about 80% of his fish stock dying, primarily grouper weighing between 100 grams and 2.5 kilograms each.

Tinh estimates that he has lost around 20 tons of marketable fish, amounting to approximately 5 billion dong in losses. The dead fish cannot be sold to restaurants, forcing families to hire workers to remove them from the cages and send them to processing facilities for drying and grinding into animal feed. While live grouper sells for about 200,000-220,000 dong per kilogram, the deceased fish can only fetch around 7,000 dong.

“The floods have left my family nearly destitute,” Tinh lamented. Other fish farmers in the area have also reported similar losses, with each household suffering between 2 to 10 tons of dead fish. Local estimates suggest that the total amount of grouper lost in recent days ranges from 50 to 60 tons.

Many families had taken out loans from banks or relatives to invest in their fish farming operations, and now they are facing difficulties in repaying these debts and restoring their businesses. Tinh believes that the prolonged heavy rains caused a sudden influx of freshwater from upstream into the river mouth, altering the salinity levels and shocking the fish. Previous years have seen fish deaths due to diseases or heat, but never on such a large scale.

As of now, fish in the cages continue to die sporadically due to stress. Pham Hoai Nam, Chairman of the People's Committee of Hai Binh ward, noted that the fish farming area at the mouth of the Lach Bang River has been operational for about 15 years, with 13 households currently engaged in production.

In addition to the grouper deaths, over 3,000 tons of clams in Ngoc Son ward have also died in recent days. The agricultural sector has preliminarily assessed that the heavy rains have caused a rapid decrease in salinity, leading to shock among the clams due to the influx of freshwater and debris.

According to the Thanh Hoa Provincial Civil Defense Command, from September 13 to 21, the floods forced more than 2,600 households and approximately 9,000 people across 82 communes and wards to evacuate. Currently, 124 households with over 460 individuals in 21 communes and wards are still unable to return home due to landslide risks or ongoing cleanup efforts. The floods have damaged 89 houses, caused landslides at over 350 locations on national and provincial roads, disrupting transportation, and inundated more than 7,300 hectares of rice, sugarcane, and crops, as well as nearly 4,660 hectares of aquaculture.

In the last three days, rainfall in Thanh Hoa has decreased, and water levels in the rivers are receding quickly. Over 22,000 military and police personnel, along with approximately 16,500 local security forces, have been mobilized to assist residents in recovering from the aftermath of the disaster.