Over 20 kilometers away, in Vinh Thanh Commune, Nguyen Van Hat, 45, and his wife have barely slept for over a week as their durian orchard is now under two meters of water.
His family, also from Tien Giang, sold all their property to move to the area and start a new life two months ago.
Using the proceedings and borrowed funds, Hat bought a 2.5-year-old durian orchard for over VND2 billion and spent another VND1 billion to invest in real estate.
Before the floods he had hired workers paying them tens of millions of dong to strengthen the dike and installed four pumps. He had hoped to start earning money in two years when the trees matured and begin bearing fruits.
But the flood broke the dike last week, flooding the 1.6-hectare orchard and killing all 210 trees.
It left only a warehouse he recently built to store pesticides and fertilizers standing. With the trees gone, Hat plans to temporarily rent out the warehouse to salvage whatever money he can.
“We have to wait until the water recedes before removing the dead trees and planting new ones,” he said. “Fixing the dike will take a few hundred million dong. I do not know where to find the funds.”
A two-hectare durian orchard next to Hat’s managed to hold out thanks to its sturdy dike. Its owner had to fortify the embankment to prevent the meter-deep water outside from flooding in.
This photo shows local militia, soldiers and police using boats to help people in Dong Thap Muoi harvest their paddy.
The water levels in rivers in the wetlands have reached 2.82 meters, 0.32 meters above the highest levels in all of 2024. They have submerged dozens of hectares of rice that were to be harvested later in the year.
Rice fields surrounded by floodwaters in Vinh Thanh.
The Department of Agriculture and Environment reported that Dong Thap Muoi has 6,000 hectares of rice planted for the upcoming harvest.
Of these some 750 hectares in Khanh Hung, Vinh Hung and Tuyen Binh communes are near ripening but threatened by the floods.
