Most victims of Vietnam's Mekong Delta floods are children
CAO LANH - She
recounts it numbly: Nguyen Thi Hop's
one-room hut had filled chest-high with
water, so she went to get tree trunks to
build a bridge to the road. She called her
16-year-old daughter, who was minding
the baby, to come help for a moment.
When Hop ran back into the house, the
baby had disappeared -- fallen into the
murky water beneath the raised wooden bed.
"I don't know why I wasn't more careful," said Hop, 39, weeping as she recalled
the death of her 1-year-old daughter, Bui Thi Diem. "Normally I watch over her
with special care. I don't know why I didn't that day."
The tragedy has been repeated over and over in
Vietnam's Mekong Delta, hit by the worst
flooding in four decades. An astounding 75
percent of the fatalities -- 236 of 319 so far --
have been children, most under age 3.
"The situation is tragic -- the more so because there is very little we can do to
help," said U.N. Children's Fund spokesman Damien Personnaz.
Heavy monsoon rains in July triggered massive flooding along the Mekong River,
which cuts through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. An estimated 6.5
million people have been affected, especially in the southern delta regions of
Cambodia and Vietnam.
In Vietnam, 45,000 families have been displaced, many to cramped makeshift
shelters atop crumbling earth dikes or alongside highways. Others have remained
in their flooded homes, their possessions stacked on bamboo platforms inches
above the water.
In the worst-hit provinces of Dong Thap, An Giang and Long An, acres of lush
rice paddies have been swallowed by muddy brown waters that have swamped
low-lying rural roads. Water levels have peaked but won't recede until
mid-November -- if heavy storms stay away in the meantime.
Forty percent of the child deaths have been in Dong Thap, where about 95
percent of the province is under water, said Dang Ngoc Loi, director of the local
disaster coordination center.
In most cases, parents were forced to leave home to find work, firewood or
food, leaving children unattended, Loi said. Some young children also have rolled
off their beds into the water at night.
"We've tried to spread information through TV and radio, warning parents to be
more careful," Loi said.
But, he conceded, most parents have little choice but to leave to find work and
food.
In the provincial capital of Cao Lanh, about 100 miles west of Ho Chi Minh City,
where most families raise rice or fruit trees, all the city's seven flood casualties
were children.
Congregants at the local Protestant church, attending service Sunday in flood
waters up to their knees, offered prayers and donations for the family of a
2-year-old drowning victim.
"About 90 percent of my congregants have had their houses flooded," Pastor
Ngo Van Buu said. "They still come to services because during hard times, they
cling closer to their faith. This is an especially difficult time for the parents who
have lost their children."
Children are also particularly vulnerable to malnutrition and waterborne diseases
like dengue fever, cholera and skin infections. In some areas, the number of
children suffering from diarrhea is up by 30 percent, officials report.
There have been no epidemics so far,
but that could change quickly.
"We are very worried about the
possibility of disease outbreaks when
the water recedes," said disaster relief
coordinator Huynh The Phien. "We've
been distributing water-purifying pills
and some medicines, but we don't have
enough."
At the local health station in the riverside
commune of Nhi My, health officials
report a 50 percent increase in the
number of people buying medicine -- mostly cold and flu remedies, skin infection
ointments and diarrhea pills.
"I think that people also buy pills even if they are not sick because they worry
that they might get ill later," said Le Thi Thuy Tien, a nurse who helped deliver
five babies during the flooding.
The most widespread impact has been on education. About 700,000 children
have been kept out of school for three to nine weeks by the flooding.
A few schools reopened Monday in Dong Thap province, where 340,000
students are out of school. Of the district's 500 schools, 486 have been flooded,
said Pham Chi Nang, director of Dong Thap's Education Department.
High school students were allowed to return first. The younger ones will have to
wait until the end of the month because officials fear the danger of commuting in
high water.
Students waded through calf-deep water to get to class at Cao Lanh High
School. Senior Cao Hoang Huy, 17, left home at 5 a.m. for a two-hour trip by
boat. Normally, it takes him a half-hour by bicycle.
His house is still flooded up to his chest and his family lost their rice crop
because it was too early to harvest when the flood came.
The oldest of four boys, Huy is in charge of watching over his 9-year-old
youngest brother.
"We haven't dared to leave him alone. We're worried after hearing about all the
drowning deaths," he said. "Someone is always watching him, even in the bath."
Associated Press - October 11, 2000.
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