Hanoi digs up giant trees to make way for subway

All this green space along Kim Ma Street and Thu Le Lake will be removed for the new metro line.

Two trees will be chopped down and the rest will be be replanted, including 24 old mahogany trees of between 0.4-1m in diameter.

All the trees have been numbered to help the relocation.

Dao Dinh Tung, a 82-year-old man who has been selling lottery tickets on the street for more than 30 years, said he is sad that all the trees will just be memory in a couple days.

Some of the mahogany trees are huge. Several infrastructure projects in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have come at the expense of many trees, and could have been worse without strong public protests.

“It took so many years for us to have these trees. We don’t know if it will ever be this green again,” a local said.

A truck arrives for the job.

A worker cuts branches from a mahogany tree. The digging will be done at night.

The trees will be moved to a garden in the neighboring Hung Yen Province and be replanted in Hanoi after a year.

The work is expected to take 90 days.

This huge banyan tree with a two-meter trunk will be left alone.