HCM City struggles to cope with record rainfall, floods

Heavy rain continued to flood parts of southern HCM City on September 19 as the city's billion dollars worth of anti-flooding infrastructure could not drain the water out fast enough.

Do Tan Long, a senior official from the HCM City Anti-Flooding Centre said the city's sewage systems, which was designed originally for rainfall of 86mm failed to deal with this year's rain, which is the highest recorded level by far at 142 mm.

Numerous streets of HCM City, the country's largest economic hub, turned into rivers in the span of three hours after torrential rain battered the city on September 15.

Thousands of the city's residents could not go home due to traffic jams and floods.

Traffic jams occurred at many junctions throughout the city, especially at Binh Thanh district where thousands of vehicles formed a 5km line.

Motorbike drivers had to push their engine-dead vehicles under the rain and rising water. The water level was reported to be as high as 1m at several locations.

Long said that the city's sewage systems, which were built in 2005, are no longer able to handle such a large amount of water within such a short amount of time on top of rising tides of nearby rivers.

He added that the city will continue with its anti-flooding effort by upgrading the current sewage system, which stretches over 200km in length throughout the city, various dredge canals and building at least three more reservoirs in the next five years to effectively end flooding in the city's 13 urban districts.-VNA