Residents of Rach Cheo Commune in Ca Mau Province’s Phu Tan District meet with doctors from Ca Mau General Hospital on May 8.

Ngo Thi Diec’s 34-year-old daughter has been confined to her bed for the last month after being diagnosed with liver cancer.

Diec and other residents of Ho Chi Minh City’s Binh Chanh District strongly suspect the plethora of diseases besetting them, including the high incidence of cancer, is caused by underground water pollution.

Diec’s family resettled in the district’s Binh Tri Dong A Ward in 2001, and began using underground water for cooking and boiling water to drink.

No tap water is supplied to the place which is surrounded by many plants producing leather shoes, rubber and screws as well as recycling metal wire and plastic bags, all activities that seriously pollute the environment.

“It’s unbearable that all my family members have contracted diseases,”

Diec said. “We had bought expensive water filters to protect our health.”

She has requested local authorities to have the groundwater tested, but there has been no response yet.

Other residents of the ward are also living in fear as cancer deaths have increased recently.

One resident, known only as Bay N., died last year of lung cancer.

He had earlier requested local authorities repeatedly to relocate an aluminum plant next to his house, which he believed to have caused pollution and affected locals’ health. Shortly after the plant moved out of the ward, he was diagnosed with terminal stage cancer.

Thanh Nien visited the site early this week and found the air was seriously polluted and foul odors were emitted by dozens of production plants located inside the residential area.

Residents said some plants have been moved, but others remained, polluting the environment with no waste treatment.

One resident said she had caught a plant producing electric wires discharging used acid directly to the canal and the street.

A ward official, who was informed of the case, visited the place only to glance at it before leaving, she said.

‘Cancer neighborhood’

Meanwhile, many residents in a commune in Ca Mau Province are also worried about rising cancer cases in their midst but are yet to pinpoint the cause.

Kieu Hoai Ha, secretary of the party unit of Rach Cheo Commune in the province’s Phu Tan District, said he had requested scientists and authorities to find out if polluted underground water was causing the increase in cancer cases.

A local medical team met recently with the residents to study the problem, but have reached no conclusions.

Nguyen Van Sang says there are many more cancer deaths in the ward than reported by the commune medical center.

“Nguyen Van Nghiem and Nguyen Van Thanh, died of cancer but they are not named in the report,” he said.

Sang said he has a tumor and his daughter has been treated by a hospital in HCMC for the same problem.

Ca Mong Cam said her father-in-law had died of cancer and her mother-in-law is now suffering the same disease.

Another resident, Ca Thi Ut, was diagnosed with cancer recently. Her father had died early this year of the same disease.

Residents say around 20 people in 60 families living on the side of the Tu Ga Canal in Rach Cheo Commune have died of cancer in the past 10 years and dubbed the area the “cancer neighborhood.”

Reported by Minh Nam – Gia Bach