Many dikes in My Thuy commune are damaged and degraded, greatly affecting agricultural production - Photo: LT
Many dike works are degraded.
The old Hai Lang district (now belonging to 5 communes of My Thuy, Hai Lang, Vinh Dinh, Nam Hai Lang and Dien Sanh) has a flood protection dike system consisting of 14 dike lines along the left and right banks of Tan Vinh Dinh, Cuu Vinh Dinh, Mai Linh, O Giang rivers and the left bank of O Lau river with a total length of more than 56km. The projects were invested in construction and upgraded and completed from 2008 to 2011.
After more than 15 years of operation, the dike system has been effective in local agricultural production. However, many works and items are showing signs of damage, the dike surface is sinking, the dike roof is forming a frog's jaw, and there is a risk of losing the ability to prevent floods in increasingly extreme weather conditions.
Present at Dong Duong village, My Thuy commune, the reporter recorded that many rice fields of the people could not be replanted, the fields were likely to be abandoned due to the failure to overcome the consequences of the dike breach from the impact of storm No. 1 (June 2025).
Director of Dong Duong Production and Service Cooperative Phan Van Quang said that along Vinh Dinh River passing through My Thuy Commune, there is a 5km long dike surrounding hundreds of hectares of rice fields of local people. The dike has the effect of preventing floods and protecting crops, but in recent years, many sections have been degraded. In particular, heavy rains due to the impact of Storm No. 1 recently caused the Vinh Dinh River to rise, breaking the dike, flooding all of the people's rice fields.
Although the cooperative mobilized manpower to build sandbags, only a small part of the 200 hectares of flooded rice fields were saved, the rest had to be abandoned. “Currently, many cooperative member households are forced to abandon their fields. For the areas that have been replanted, people are also worried because they are behind schedule, and the dike system is now completely damaged,” Mr. Quang shared.
Chairman of the People's Committee of My Thuy Commune Cap Xuan Ta said that not only in Dong Duong village, but all 900 hectares of rice in the commune were flooded because 5km of protective dikes were flooded. Although the local authorities have directed to repair this area, due to the deterioration of the flood-preventing dike system, re-sowing was delayed compared to the crop schedule, posing many potential risks. More worryingly, in My Thuy commune, 12 subsidence sections with a total length of 600m were recorded, including a 25m-long washed-away section, affecting 290 hectares of rice and internal traffic.
In Nam Hai Lang commune, more than 350m of the dike collapsed, of which 30m were in critical locations, directly threatening about 500ha of rice. In Dien Sanh commune, 7 sections of the dike collapsed, threatening 420ha of rice and 80ha of crops.
In particular, the recent floods caused by storm No. 1 have caused severe erosion of many dike sections in low-lying communes (formerly Hai Lang district). Some areas do not meet the requirements for preventing floods at the beginning of the winter-spring crop, early floods or small floods, which have appeared more and more irregularly in recent years.
The five low-lying communes of My Thuy, Hai Lang, Vinh Dinh, Nam Hai Lang and Dien Sanh are considered the rice granaries of Quang Tri province with more than 10,000 hectares of rice. However, the deterioration of the dike system and climate change have greatly affected the productivity and quality of this staple crop. Therefore, the fundamental solution is to urgently invest in comprehensively upgrading the dike system to avoid the current situation here where there are dikes to prevent floods but water still flows in, causing hundreds of hectares of rice to fail. |
Need to invest in synchronous repair
To invest in repairing the dike system, in 2024, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development sent a document to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (now the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment ) on the establishment of a medium-term public investment plan for the period 2026 - 2030 with capital managed by the ministry. The content includes upgrading the entire 56km of dikes, renovating 50km of flood drainage, expanding pumping stations combined with irrigation with a total proposed budget of 500 billion VND to ensure flood prevention requirements in the early winter - spring crop.
In particular, after the impact of storm No. 1, the People's Committee of Quang Tri province also issued an order to build emergency works to repair landslides and damage to irrigation works and dykes. However, out of the total budget of more than 10.7 billion VND, only 3 billion VND was spent on treating more than 1km of weak dykes in three communes: Hai Duong, Hai Truong and old Hai Phong.
Many rice fields of Dong Duong Production and Service Cooperative, My Thuy commune, have not been able to be replanted after the dike breach in June 2025 - Photo: LT
According to the Department of Irrigation and Disaster Prevention and Control, due to the current lack of funding to comprehensively address the issue, the unit has requested communes to proactively allocate budgets to prioritize the implementation of urgent and temporary reinforcement solutions for vulnerable locations to limit damage.
Deputy Head of the Irrigation and Disaster Prevention Sub-Department Le Chi Cong said that currently, the repair of the damage to the dike system and landslides on local river banks is only at a patchwork level. This is a short-term, temporary solution, not effective in the long term and does not ensure the capacity to prevent natural disasters in the context of the current abnormal climate.
Therefore, we look forward to the attention and support of the central authorities and sectors so that when there is capital, the locality will upgrade the entire dike system to protect and serve agricultural production for the people, especially the key rice growing areas of the province.
Le Truong
Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/can-som-nang-cap-he-thong-de-dieu-phuc-vu-san-xuat-196189.htm
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