VietNamNet Bridge – As one of the oldest jobs that still exists in Vietnam, well diggers in Thanh That District, Hanoi, said that their job is “eating rice in the earth, working in the hades”.



With 20 years of experience, Do Van Minh, 43, from Kim Quan commune,

Thach That district, said: “To be a well digger, you must be more

enduring than others. You must be also careful and experienced

in preparing tools and checking for toxic gas”.

 


Earning highly, but this is a hard and dangerous job.

Working at the depths of dozens of meters, well diggers face

a lot of risks while their tools are very simple and they nearly don’t have labor safety equipment.

 


Members in Minh’s group all come from Mo Nong village, Kim Quan

commune. They have worked together for over 20 years. Women

like Chung, Phuong and Thuy only work on the ground.



 


Minh, the group’s leader, who is called “pho ca” is the only

member who works underground nearly the whole day.

Air compressors are used to provide air to “pho ca”.


 

Mrs. Thuy said that in the past, they had to manually pull soil from wells. Now they use winches.

“Pho ca,” soil and brick transporters and winch operator must

harmoniously combine with each other to avoid accidents.



As underground water resources have been exhausted in Thach That, wells are dug for over 30m deep to have water. At this depth, the fall of small gravel may cause an accident, so carefulness is the must of well diggers. It takes workers tens of days to dig a well. Customers have to pay fees whether wells have water or not. Vu Dinh Thuyen, the owner of this well was very nervous seeing a handful of sand which had just been taken from the well at the depth of 30m. If diggers reached the sandy layer, they would only need to dig for several meters more to know whether the well is much of water or not.


 It is hard to seek a place to discharge soil from wells. Mrs. Phuong

said that sometimes she had to go a kilometer to discharge soil.


“Pho ca” Minh works at least 10 hours a day underground.

He goes down to the well by this pulley.


Having been working for over 20 years, Minh still feels comfortable

whenever he gets back to the earth after hours of working underground.



The “meal on the earth” of well diggers, who work “in the hell”.


 

Le Anh Dung