LookAtVietnam – Four additional pumping stations will be built to help clear floodwaters during the next rainy season.

Workers carry out construction work for the Cat Linh underground sluice, which is expect to be completed by the end of this year.

Capacity of the Yen So station is being doubled to 90cu.m per second while the new Dong My station, with a capacity of 35cu.m per second, will drain areas along the To Lich River.

The stations will meet peak demands, said Hoc.

The city’s drainage systems have fallen behind demand during rapid urbanisation and replacements seem to have been forgotten, said Hoc.

A decade ago, when there was a lot of open space, the absorbent capacity was 0.3 but with saturation urbanisation it is zero, said Bui Huu Doan, deputy head of the Infrastructure Department under the Ministry of Construction.

The older systems had not been properly upgraded, so the municipal People’s Committee had plans to invest in infrastructure to move rain water to the rivers and canals leading to the stations, he said.

Clearing rivers

The city is clearing the inner rivers, To Lich, Lu, Set and Kim Nguu, and extending the Hoang Liet and Thanh Liet canals to a total length of 32km.

It is also raising the capacity of inner lakes like Hao Nam and Dong Da, building pipeline systems and waste water treatment stations in Dong Da and Hoang Mai districts, said Doan.

The city still lacks an overall long-term drainage plan, he said. A long-term plan will need to be in tandem with the drainage systems of neighbouring provinces and the development plan for clearing and extending waterway, said Tran Doan Tho, Deputy Minister of Transport.

National Centre for Hydro-meteorology Forecasting director Bui Minh Tang said the rainy season would be more widespread than last year, with large areas of heavy rain, especially in northern provinces.

Rainfall would be higher than the average of 1,600mm, he said.

The centre has told local authorities in northern provinces and cities to draw up detailed plans to handle heavy rains like those that caused flooding around Ha Noi in November.

The plans must include ways to quickly evacuate people and maintain cooking supplies during serious flooding, especially in more isolated areas, said Tang.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News