Fragile before the waves
Mr. Dinh Ngoc Vinh, owner of Soul Kitchen restaurant (Hoi An Tay ward) stood still, watching the fierce waves crashing onto the shore, his eyes filled with worry. At his feet, hundreds of broken sandbags lay tangled in the crooked bamboo poles. In nearly 16 years since renting land along the An Bang coast to open the restaurant, Mr. Vinh has never seen the coastline eroded as severely as this year.
Although last month, he spent tens of millions of dong to buy bamboo roots, materials, hire workers to drive piles, and reinforce the shore below the restaurant, but after only a few days of storms, especially after storm No. 13, everything fell apart. Next to Soul Kitchen, the shores of Sao Bien and Mr. Ca restaurants are also desolate, the traces of erosion are jagged, precarious earthen walls that seem ready to collapse at any moment.
Mr. Dinh Ngoc Vinh said that the Soul Kitchen restaurant land with an area of 650 square meters was auctioned off by him in April 2024 for nearly 1.7 billion VND/year, although it only operates for about 4-6 months each year.
Since the storms and rains at the end of September, the restaurant has been closed or operating at a low capacity. “Now, all assets and money have been poured into the restaurant, not to mention the lives of more than ten employees and workers who depend on it, so we have to try to hold on, we cannot give up,” said Mr. Vinh.
Although storm 13 did not directly hit Da Nang , it still had a heavy impact, especially on businesses along the Hoi An coast. At Deckhouse restaurant, the waves destroyed the steps leading down to the sea. Even the adjacent Shore Club restaurant suffered a landslide that reached the swimming pool. Mr. Le Ngoc Thuan, owner of Deckhouse and Shore Club (Hoi An Tay), shared that business has never been as unsafe and difficult as it is now.
Like Soul Kitchen restaurant, after more than 10 years of renting 2 restaurants at a relatively high price, in April 2025, Mr. Thuan continued to rent the above 2 restaurants, but the price has increased many times. Specifically, each year Mr. Thuan has to pay rent for 2 plots of land of about 4.4 billion VND (each plot of land is 800m2).
“The rental price is high, now there is also landslide, businesses are facing extremely difficult times, so we really need the support and sharing of the State so we can overcome and stabilize business soon,” Mr. Thuan expressed.
Hoi An Tay Ward has 3.5km of coastline, where many hotels and restaurants serving tourists are concentrated. From mid-October until now, through 2 storms, it seems that the entire coastline has been eroded, the consequences not only threaten architectural works, houses, property of businesses and people but also affect business activities.
Emergency Coast Guard
For nearly 15 years, coastal erosion in Hoi An has become a persistent problem every time the rainy and stormy season comes. Many coastal protection solutions have been deployed such as larsen pile driving, hard concrete revetments, beach creation, remote soft breakwaters built with geosacks, etc., but the effectiveness has not been as expected.
According to the representative of Boutique Hotel (Thanh My block, Hoi An Tay ward), there needs to be a drastic intervention of relevant departments and scientific researchers to find the root cause, and at the same time propose a comprehensive solution to the problem of erosion at Hoi An beach. In 2024, Boutique Hotel invested 2 billion VND to build a concrete embankment to prevent waves to protect the shore, but after a short period of storms, the embankment was destroyed by waves, seawater eroded into the hotel grounds more than 10m, knocking the bar counter into the water.
In fact, from 2020 to now, about 5 large-scale seawall projects invested by the State and dozens of small projects implemented by businesses themselves have been implemented, but most of them are helpless against the fierce waves.
Notably, we can mention the project "Emergency anti-erosion and coastal protection of Hoi An combined with dredging of Cua Dai", with a total investment of 40 billion VND, implemented in 2020; the project "Emergency anti-erosion of Cua Dai coastal", with a total investment of 300 billion VND, started in July 2021 and completed in August 2022 or the project "Emergency anti-erosion embankment of Cua Dai coastal" from Cam An Ward People's Committee to An Bang area, with a cost of 210 billion VND, started in the summer of 2022; The project "Urgent anti-erosion of Cua Dai beach", dredging Cua Dai area to get sand to fill the beach, started in November 2023 and completed in September 2024 and most recently the project "Anti-erosion and sustainable protection of Hoi An beach", total construction investment of 42 million euros from ODA loans and non-refundable aid, started in March 2025, lasting 2 years.
It can be seen that although the investment amount has reached thousands of billions of VND, the coastal erosion of Hoi An has not been completely resolved. More worryingly, the erosion is moving north at a rapid pace.
If about 5 years ago, landslides only appeared on Cua Dai beach and Thanh My block area, now they are present in Tan Thanh and An Bang, and it is predicted that in the near future, they could threaten Ha My beach if there is no comprehensive solution to prevent it in time.
Mr. Bui Van Dung, Chairman of Hoi An Tay Ward People's Committee, admitted that all reinforcements and embankments during the recent stormy days were only temporary to minimize landslides. In the long term, there needs to be a comprehensive project with large investment and appropriate scientific and technical research to protect Hoi An's coastline while still being able to keep the beautiful sandbank for tourism development.
Source: https://baodanang.vn/phap-phong-theo-con-song-du-3309642.html
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