A house in Cao Thang District is surrounded by electric wires and transformers.

Thousands of houses in Ho Chi Minh City have been built in the electricity danger zone, but city authorities have been acting too slowly to stop the numbers from rising even further.

A wall of the Phong Lan Hotel in the center of District 1 was built just 0.3 meters from a 15,000-voltage transformer station instead of at least one meter as required.

The hotel owner has been asked to do what is necessary to ensure compliance with the electricity safety regulations by December.

A house on Cam Thang Street has its wall touching the high-voltage cables and a window open to the transformer box while another one on Tam Dao Street has been built around a high-voltage pole.

Phan Thanh Tuan, an official from HCMC Department of Industry and Trade, said the inspection was just a trial and his unit will propose penalties on all cases.

Hong Tuan Khanh from the Technology Department of the Saigon Electricity Company said most owners of these houses “are not aware of the danger they are living with.”

The impact of electric discharge from a 15,000-220,000 voltage current would be “unimaginable,” Khanh said.

Saigon Electricity Company said the violations have persisted for long but the city has not been determined enough to stop them. The company was not authorized to take any action by itself apart from informing various levels of the government, it added.

There’ve been many cases that the information has been passed when the house was being built, but an order from the city government would arrive only when the two or three-story house was finished, the company said.

A large amount of red tape is involved in removing parts of a house that violate the power zone, it added.

The firm also blamed traffic authorities for not discussing with them before raising the streets because some residents would then be forced to raise their houses as well, bringing them nearer to electric wires.

Tran Kiem Tuan, deputy director of the company, said his unit will deal with the problem first by adding insulation to the wires, building more electric poles so that the wires won’t sag, and grounding wires from house roofs.

Reported by Phuong Thanh