Saigon residents demolish houses for second metro line

Workers demolish a house using large, long-handle hammers.
For several days now, residents on Cach Mang Thang Tam and Truong Chinh Streets in Tan Binh District have been getting parts of their houses demolished to cede space for the city’s second metro line, which will run 11 kilometers through Districts 1, 3, 10, 12, Tan Binh and Tan Phu with 10 stations, nine of them underground.
More than 25,000 square meters of land need to be acquired for the project, affecting 603 houses, including 356 in Tan Binh.

The front part of more than 10 houses on Truong Chinh Street in Ward 14 get demolished and leveled.

City residents have hired workers to take down the part of their house that has to be removed for the project, which is one of eight metro lines planned in the city with a combined length of 220 kilometers and a price tag of nearly $25 billion.

Lam Van Khoi does some welding after part of his house in Ward 14 was demolished.
"We will have to dismantle anyway, so my family is doing it early so we can get things back to normal soon," he said.

"My house was 25 meters long. After the clearance, it is just 17 meters, but we accept that for the development of the city," said Bui Van Lap, 55, a resident of Truong Chinh Street.

A string of townhouses on Cach Mang Thang Tam Street get new facades after losing their original ones to the site clearance.

The area that has been cleared in this photograph will host one of the second metro line’s stations, the S9 Ba Queo. Houses in this area were asked to remove 20 meters of their frontage.

A high school gets a new school gate after part of its frontage was also taken for the metro project.
Vo Khac Hung, deputy director of the second metro line’s management board, said the process of site clearance and compensation has proceeded at a slow pace because there are some homeowners who are abroad and yet to return to Vietnam and receive their compensation. In addition, there are some state-owned buildings whose compensation awaits approval from the city's People's Committee, he said.

A site that has been cleared and transferred to the city's Management Authority for Urban Railways to build another station, the S10 Pham Van Bach.

The Bay Hien Intersection seen from above. Work on the second line will start at this intersection and go all the way to the Ben Thanh station in District 1.

Work is in progress on the Ben Thanh underground station at Quach Thi Trang Roundabout in District 1 right in front of the city’s iconic Ben Thanh Market. The Ben Thanh station is also connected with the metro line No.1
Le Van Khoa, director of the second metro line’s project management board, said that for now, districts have compensated 590 of 603 affected households, with Districts 1, Tan Binh and Tan Phu completing their tasks in full. So far, 265 households have completed the demolition work and handed over the cleared site.

The Tham Luong Depot for the second line has been built in District 12. It is a building with six floors and a basement that will work as the executive office, parking area and serve other functions. It is expected that work will start in the third quarter of 2021 for the entire second line. As per current schedule, the line will become operational in 2026, serving 140,000 passengers per day in the first phase and 400,000 once it is completed in full.