Seawater in Halong City in the northern province of Quang Ninh has been seriously polluted due to the heavy runoff in recent days that brought along rock, soil and coal slurry from the upstream to the sea.

The seawater around Halong City has been polluted by coal slurry due to heavy rains and flood.

The pollution has damaged over 800 saltwater fish rearing rafts in the area, Nguyen Manh Cuong, director of Quang Ninh Department of Natural Resources and Environment, told the Daily during a phone interview on August 6, blaming the heavy rains and flood over the past ten days in the province.

Cuong said the province is making efforts to dredge canals, streams and rivers in the area to let the water flow as it has been blocked by mud and soil.

The coal sector is getting water out of flooded mines in a bid to put them back to operation as soon as possible. Mong Duong coal mine in the province with exploitation tunnels at a depth of 250 meters underground is still flooded and it is expected to take three to five months to completely restore the mine.

So far, Quang Ninh has suffered damages worth some VND2.7 trillion (US$123.8 million) due to rains and floods, with the coal sector alone losing around VND1.2 trillion.

Mai Thanh Dung, deputy head of the Vietnam Environment Administration, said a large amount of coal slurry, coal, soil and rock has spread over streams in many parts of Quang Ninh Province, forcing many households to move to safer places.

The downpours have swept away coal slurry at mine coals and discharged it into streams and rivers and the sea, Dung said.

He called on the province’s coal sector to quickly dredge rivers and streams to avoid bad impacts of the slurry on the environment, and upgrade levees around waste-disposal sites of coal mines to prevent coal slurry from flowing out in case of more heavy rains.

According to an environment expert in Quang Ninh, in the past five years, the coal sector has built a wastewater treatment system at each coal mine in the province as wastes from coal exploitation contain many harmful substances such as manganese, arsenic and iron oxide.

Given the flooded coal mines as currently, this expert warned that the coal sector has to make sure wastewater from those mines will not flow into the environment.