Lack of rainfall is causing tributaries of Mekong River to dry up driving thousands of Vietnamese delta residents into poverty.

Dominic Nguyen Trieu, a lay leader of Thien Phuoc parish based in the Tam Nong district of Dong Thap province, said that 200 families living in the parish have no land for cultivation.

They earn their living by catching fish in the flood season and working as daily workers, he said.

Trieu noted that local poor people are facing famine and their children will be forced to drop out of school.

Without floods, this year’s crops will also be at risk without the silt usually deposited by the river.

The floods also wash away field mice, grass seeds, insects and even chemicals, Trieu explained.

Local media have reported that 150,000 hectares of fields remain dry as a result of the lack of rainfall.

“The Mekong river usually floods this area three meters in depth at this time of year,” Peter Nguyen Thanh Hien told ucanews.com.

“I would earn 50,000 – 100,000 dong (US $3 -6) a day from catching fish,” he said.

But Hien’s area, which lies at the lowest point of the Mekong delta, has still not flooded this year, leaving his four member family to survive on the 40,000 dong per day (US $2.50) earned by his wife.

As a result, Hien says he is unable to repay a 17 million dong (US $1,000) loan he took from a local bank last year to repair his house.

The father of two told ucanews.com that he now had to borrow money from friends in order to pay for his children’s school fees as well as to buy books and stationery for the new school year.

Marie Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hanh, 39, a local fisherperson, said she has been waiting for this year’s flood so her family could catch fish. In previous years this area flooded from July to November, she added.

Related report
Mekong parish at action stations as delta dries up

VT11103.1618