Located
on the banks of downstream
Huong (Perfume) River,
the old town in
Huong Vinh Commune
was severely flooded Saturday after it rained heavily for two days
.
Bao Vinh Town, 3 km from Hue’s center, is a valuable part of the cultural heritage of Hue, Vietnam’s former imperial capital.
Huong and her daughter
run an eatery, but their flooded shop has no customers.
“Normally we are busy serving food
,
but now we just sit here all day. If the water level increases, we will have to move our stuff upstairs,” Huong said.
A woman sings karaoke as two men have a drink at a shop open for business despite being flooded.
According to
the
National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting
, at
7 p.m. o
n
Saturday, the water level
on
Huong River at Kim Long Ward
was
343 m,
just short of a
level 3 alert.
Hoang Thi Be takes care of her grandchild
after
her daughter
has left for work. Though the lives of
Bao Vinh
residents have
been turned upside down,
people have put up with it stoically
.
Flooding has closed the local
Bao Vinh Market
with water more than a foot high.
Some
people at the market, without
any business to attend to, bring out
tables and plastic chairs to chat and drink tea.
People wade through water that has risen above their knees, reaching
60 cm
in some places
.
Thang
wades
out to buy some food for dinner. His house
is
seriously flooded so the family ha
s moved up to the second floor.
Tung said
that whenever he was out of gas, all it took was call for a shop to deliver one to his door. Now, with the flooding, he has to take a tank home himself.
Huynh Thi Chien Thang cooks dinner for her family in
a
flooded
room
.
“
Most of the
furniture in the house
was moved up
to avoid the water
s. My
kitchen
is so badly flooded that I had to move everything out here to cook,” she
said.
Tuan’s
low-lying house had no chance against the floods. All his
family members have temporarily
moved
to their relatives’ places,
leaving him behind to
watch over the house.
Some people are offering ferry services for
VND10000
-50000 ($0.4-2.2) a trip
.
