VietNamNet Bridge – Nguyen Thi Xuan, 63, knelt down crying when she saw the entire roof of her house blown away during the recent Storm Son Tinh. Xuan's home province, Nam Dinh, was among the worst hit in the Hong (Red) River Delta when the storm unexpectedly hit on October 28.

Out of 32 deaths caused by the storm, Nam Dinh reported only one, but huge damage was reported by fishermen and salt makers.

Four days after the cyclone in coastal Hai Dong Commune in Hai Hau District, the scene was chaotic. There were homes without roofs, fallen trees, flooded rice fields and roads. The smell of rotting straw pervaded the air.

The loss of farm production is a common event in the poor community often hit by storms. Once again, life has slowed down to repair the damage.

Xuan lives alone in what's left of her old house 500 metres from the beach. Returning from shelter the day after the storm, she was speechless to find her once bountiful garden reduced to a few fallen banana trees.

She moved into her 12-sq.m kitchen, the only reasonable shelter left. She collected straw and branches to do her cooking. "Everything's gone. God has robbed us of everything! The paddy fields could not be harvested in time and the rice has sprouted and gone rotten," Xuan wailed sadly.

She looked anxiously at her unroofed house. Just one more storm, and it would be blown away too. "I have lived in fear of storms for 17 years since a huge storm hit in 1995," Xuan said. ‘The storm season often occurs from July to November. My heart is pained by worry.

"But living so long in suffering, I think I have got used to it. We here were born in storms, live in storms and die in storms," Xuan said tiredly.

Her son in law says that it will take about VND30 million (US$1,440) to make temporary repairs to their house. "But we are penniless. All we can do is to collect packing and nylon bags to make a roof," he said.

Hai Dong is also one of the biggest salt-making area in Nam Dinh. More than 65 hectares of salt were submerged in floodwater, leaving 650 salt farmers in despair. Salt stores also collapsed.

Cao Thi Huong, 30, a salt worker in Xuan Ha Village, said that the storm ripped tiles and bricks from their home. She and her two children had to move out. Her husband bravely stayed home to look after things. However, he too had to flee as the storm blew more tiles and bricks off.

Salt makers like Huong work hard from dawn to dusk to make ends meet, so it's hard when a storm washes away more than 1,000 sq.m of salt fields and a store containing tonnes of salt.

Her family also lost all fish in their pond. Total damage is about VND50 million ($2,400), equal to six months' earnings by her and her husband. "I am not sure what to feed my family," Huong said.

Salt traders in the locality lost from VND100-200 million ($4,800-9,600) each. According to Pham Van Hien, chairman of Hai Dong Commune People's Committee, total damage is about VND40 billion ($1.9 million).

In neighbouring Giao Thuy District, many local residents have been pushed into debt by the storm. A young and rich entrepreneur, Dinh Thanh Khiet, lost 3,000 sq.m of farmed geoduck clams, breeding stock, shrimp ponds and 400 tonnes of fish. A total investment of VND4 billion ($192,000) in aquatic products disappeared, raising the entire losses in the province to VND1.54 trillion ($74 million).

The storm damaged embankments, canals, pumping stations, rice and aqua-cultural products, power poles and power lines.

Do Van Khanh, head of the provincial Department for Flood and Storm Prevention said the massive havoc was partly due to inaccurate forecasts from the local weather bureau.

He said the storm was first forecast to strike the central coastal region, leaving the northern delta mostly unprepared.
"We were only warned a few hours beforehand, and it was almost night," he added.

There was barely enough time to move goods from 1,200 homes to higher ground, and issue notices to about 2,000 fishing boats with 10,450 fishermen aboard. But Khanh admitted that "we were still lucky to have such low human losses".

Local leaders and residents are now busy rebuilding, helped by volunteer teams from far and wide. In Xuan's powerless kitchen-home, the darkness fades as the first sunlight of the day appears.

VietNamNet/VNS