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The water sources providing water to hundreds of households for dozens of years in the two hamlets, which were once named Quyet Thang in the past, is contaminated with petrol, a consequence of the war.
The water taken from the wells is always yellow and has scum. A local man said the water taken from the depth of 2 meters under the earth gives a bad odor like a petrol smell and is flammable.
The people living around the canal, which contains water flowing from the mountain to the fields, have to use more heavily contaminated water.
Ho Thi Huyen, a local woman, said when workers dug a well at her house 10 years ago, people found it difficult to breathe because of the petrol’s smell.
Huyen finally decided to stop digging and fill in the well to prevent the bad odor.
However, though local people know the water is contaminated, they still have to use it for daily life.
They take petrol contaminated water from self-dug wells and then filter the water manually with coal, sand and alum.
In recent years, as locals became richer, they built large tanks to contain rainwater for drinking. Or they bought bottles of clean water.
According to Vo Doan Doan, deputy chair of the An Ninh commune People’s Committee, Thu Thu and Kim Nai hamlets are located close to the Highway No 15A. In 1970s, there was a military petrol storehouse situated on a hill west of Thu Thu Hamlet.
The petrol storehouse exploded in the war after it was bombed. As a result, tens of tons of petrol leaked out and absorbed into the earth.
Doan said that more than 100 households with 1,500 individuals now live in fear of disease because of the contaminated water.
Many cancer cases in the locality have been reported. More and more people living in the area have had liver, lung and kidney cancer.
The head of Thu Thu hamlet, Ho Cong Thuong, said the number of people dying at a young age was on the rise, while the number of deaths of cancer has increased.
Lao Dong
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