The scene where 12 houses collapsed into the river in Tam Giang Commune,
Nam Can District of Ca Mau Province on July 4, 2020. Photo by Vietnam News Agency.
 

Eight families in Vietnam’s southernmost Ca Mau Province have been left destitute after their riverside houses were swallowed by erosion over the weekend. 

Residents near a tributary of Cai Lon River in Tam Giang Commune, Nam Can District of Ca Mau were woken near midnight Sunday to see erosion dragging 12 homes into the water, followed by severe land subsidence and damage to two houses still left standing.

Inhabitants all managed to evade both injury or death, according to reports.

The 12 lost houses were the property of eight families, each abode measuring 21 square meters on average.

In all, erosion had claimed a total land area measuring 50 m long, 15 m wide and six meters high, causing an estimated loss of VND810 million ($35,000).

As a preliminary solution, local authorities put VND33 million toward relocating the affected families, urging five others who are at risk to resettle soon.

Nam Can District is among the localities in Ca Mau worst affected by erosion, aggravated by the annual May to November flood season.

In December last year, a combined 105 km (65 miles) of riverbank and coastal areas were eroded in Ca Mau.

The Mekong Delta province has 46 riverine and six coastal areas termed "severe" erosion hotspots, its agriculture department warned last year.

Local authorities said climate change, which leads to complex and unpredictable natural calamities, has been worsening erosion in recent years.

The province has yet to formulate a long-term response to the threat, and has merely put up warning signs across threatened localities.

In the past ten years, Vietnam has spent VND16.1 trillion ($694 million) on anti-erosion projects in Mekong Delta, allocating VND4.04 trillion ($174 million) in 2018 and 2019 alone.

Across the delta, there are 564 riverine and coastal erosion hubs measuring a total 834 km.