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Buffalo butchering video sparks online outrage in Vietnam

By VnExpress December 6, 2016 | 04:59 am PT

Knife-wielding Vietnamese descended on the dead animal like vultures after it had been hit by a truck.

In a video that went viral on Facebook on Monday, dozens of people were recorded cutting up a dead buffalo that had been killed by a truck in the middle of a road in the southern province of Binh Duong.

People ignored the heavy traffic, rushed onto the highway wielding knives and tried to chop off as much meat as possible from the dead animal, the video shows.

The video has drawn criticism from the online community, who said the residents should have moved the buffalo to the side of the road to avoid blocking traffic.

Others, however, said the mob was only trying to help “reduce the weight of the buffalo” by chopping it up, making it easier to drag the animal off the highway.

Police in Binh Chuan Ward, Thuan An Commune said the incident occurred on Monday morning and the buffalo had belonged to 50-year-old farmer Nguyen Thanh Ngoc, who arrived at the scene only to find the head and bones of his animal left.

The buffalo weighed about 120kg (265lbs) and was worth about VND12 million ($528).

The "buffalo meat looting" video adds to a series of recent clips of local residents in different parts of Vietnam taking advantage of others' misfortune.

In early November, a truck delivering goods to a supermarket in the south-central province of Binh Dinh caught fire and was looted by a mob of locals shortly after the driver fell out of the burning cabin.