VietNamNet Bridge – As local authorities keep silent, people nowadays tend to go their way to punish polluting factories.

In early 2014, nearly 200 people in O Mon district in Can Tho City gathered near the O Mon dumping ground to block the waste carrying trucks.

The waste water leaking from the dumping ground to the Ngon Ba Quy River has killed fish and polluted the water sources for local people’s daily lives. Meanwhile, the waste treatment produces bad odor, creating polluted air.

Hundreds of people in Thanh Nghi commune of Ha Nam province once surrounded the Xuan Thanh cement plant with two coffins and loudspeakers to protest against the plant’s activities of polluting the environment.

The plant was the “culprit” which kicked dust and discharged smoke to the environment. Prior to that, local people many times lodged complaints to the competent agencies about the pollution, but they had not got any replies.

The Binh Nguyen Waste Treatment Complex is located in Quang Ngai province, but it has been causing pollution to the neighboring province of Quang Nam as well.

Nguyen Thi Lan, a resident of Nui Thanh district in Quang Nam province, said when the garbage is burnt, the bad odor would pervade the air, making people heady and nauseous. The waste water leaking into the stream has killed fishes and made people itchy.

As the local authorities could not settle the problem to the very root, hundreds of local people in March 2013 gathered there to prevent trucks from entering the dumping ground.

The people in Vinh Phuong commune of Nha Trang City followed a special way to fight against the polluting tobacco factory. They rushed to the headquarters of the commune’s people’s committee asking for accommodations. They said Khatoco’s factory produced bad odor, smoke and dust everyday, which made their lives upset.

When protesting against the factory’s activities of polluting the environment, three people were taken away by competent agencies to their headquarters, while other people said they were injured by the police.

The existence of hundreds of tons of pesticide under the ground in Thanh Hoa province had not been discovered if the local people had not unearthed to find the barrels of pesticide themselves.

According to Lawyer Nguyen Van Hau, Deputy Chair of the HCM City Bar Association, the local people have suffered from the pollution for 10 years long. They many times complained about the pollution to the competent agencies, but they have not got the support.

“People understand that they violate the laws when acting so spontaneously. However, this proves to be the only thing they can do to protect themselves from the environment pollution,” Hau said.

Dr. Nguyen Thi Kim Loan from the HCM City University of Social Sciences and Humanity commented that this is the inevitable reaction people would take once their lives are endangered.

“They believe that only when they take strong actions, would they be able to catch the attention of the local authorities,” Loan commented. However, their actions may turn them – the victims – into the law violators.

NLD