Floods cause heavy damage to Lam Dong's largest vegetable farm

Due to the impact of prolonged rain combined with massive hydropower discharge, many places in Don Duong area, the largest vegetable growing area of ​​Lam Dong province, have been flooded for several days now. In particular, while agricultural prices are increasing sharply as they are now, gardeners have suffered heavy losses as crops are submerged in floodwaters.

The vegetable garden of a gardener in Ka Do commune ( Lam Dong ) was flooded due to rising floodwaters on the Da Nhim river.

Over the past few days, gardeners along the Da Nhim River (through the old Don Duong district) have been restless as floodwaters have risen, flooding their fields. From the Ka Do Bridge (Ka Do Commune) across the Da Nhim River, it is easy to see that the river water has risen deep into both banks, in some places the water has "eaten" into the river bank dozens of meters, making it impossible to see the vegetable gardens and internal roads of the people.

After the floodwaters flooded his family's entire 7,000 square meter beet garden, Mr. Nguyen Van Thach (Ka Do commune) hurriedly went to the garden to clean up, collect machinery and farming tools to avoid being swept away by the water. While pulling out the beet plants that had been soaked in water for the past two days, Mr. Thach lamented that the flood had never been as high as this year. In previous years, if the water level rose at its highest, it would only reach the edge of the riverside road, about 50 meters from his family's garden. But this year, even though the hydroelectric plant had just released floodwaters in the morning, by noon the water level had risen, in some places reaching 2 meters, seeping into ditches and streams, causing severe flooding in vegetable gardens far from the riverbank.

Most of the short-term vegetables of gardeners in Don Duong commune (Lam Dong) have been damaged by floods over the past few days.

“Basically calculating the labor, investment costs, and fertilizers, my family has lost more than 100 million VND. If these beets are soaked in water for too long, we should just throw them away. It’s true that while vegetable prices are high, we have a bad harvest,” Mr. Thach shook his head and said.

Not far from Mr. Thach’s garden, along the banks of the Da Nhim River, the lagim gardens (short-term vegetables) were submerged beyond recognition by floodwaters. Some passion fruit, eggplant, and mustard green gardens… on higher ground were also flooded up to knee-deep. The net house for growing lagim of Mr. Ho Van Tam’s family (Ka Do commune) was completely damaged when the Da Nhim River water rose almost to the roof.

Passion fruit gardens for export of gardeners in Ka Do commune (Lam Dong) are at risk of damage due to flooding over the past two days.

After two days of being "tormented" by floodwaters, Mr. Tam and some people took advantage of the receding water to wade down to push agricultural waste and Styrofoam sheets that had drifted into the dense greenhouse. Mr. Tam said that the amount of waste swept from upstream to his family's greenhouse was estimated at dozens of cubic meters. Not counting the damage to crops, just the floodwaters that swept away soil, irrigation equipment, and collapsed greenhouse frames caused millions of dong in damage to Mr. Tam's family. "Now I just hope the water recedes quickly so my family can quickly renovate the garden and plant a new crop of vegetables to harvest early when vegetable prices are as high as they are now," Mr. Tam said.

According to records, since the morning of November 17, Da Nhim - Ham Thuan - Da Mi Hydropower Joint Stock Company has continuously announced an increase in flood discharge from 300 m3/s to 600 m3/s due to the large amount of water flowing from upstream to Don Duong Lake. Due to the impact of flood discharge through the spillway of Don Duong Lake, downstream areas have been deeply flooded; including hundreds of hectares of vegetable land of people along the river, in the communes of D'Ran, Ka Do, Don Duong, Quang Lap. In the face of this situation, local authorities have mobilized forces to coordinate with functional agencies to closely monitor the actual situation to warn, evacuate, and support people to safety.

Gardeners take advantage of the time to clean up farming tools and agricultural materials as flood waters gradually recede to prepare for re-production.

According to a quick report from the Lam Dong Provincial Civil Defense Command, the preliminary update on the impact and damage caused by natural disasters and floods in the province as of the afternoon of November 18 was about 30 billion VND; of which, damage to production and agriculture was about 360 hectares of crops, mainly vegetables in the communes of D'Ran, Ka Do, Don Duong, Quang Lap and Duc Trong. In particular, in D'Ran commune (near the foot of the Da Nhim - Ham Thuan - Da Mi hydroelectric dam), up to 300 hectares of vegetables were flooded, with an estimated damage of 8 billion VND.

Currently, the flood situation in Lam Dong province is still complicated. The Lam Dong Provincial Civil Defense Command requests units and localities to continue to maintain 24/24h duty; continue to monitor the weather situation, deploy forces to inspect high-risk areas to be ready to respond. At the same time, continue to monitor and direct owners of irrigation and hydroelectric reservoirs in the area to organize reservoir operations according to the correct procedures to ensure safety of works and reduce flooding in downstream areas.

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/kinh-te/mua-lu-gay-thiet-hai-nang-cho-vua-rau-lon-nhat-lam-dong-20251119104901653.htm