The heavy rains of 400 mm and floods since mid-October 2016 have caused more than 100 deaths, injured 120 people, collapsed 316,000 houses, and damaged 42,800 hectares of rice fields and 39,000 hectares of crops. 

The flood-stricken provinces have called for the government’s urgent assistance for food, medicine, plants and animals.

Hong, in an interview with Mot The Gioi, said that terraced hydropower plants are the reason behind the severe floods.

“Terraced hydropower plants are built even on small rivers,” he said, adding that there are three to four plants on every river, while the plants are just tens of kilometers from each other.

The heavy rains of 400 mm and floods since mid-October 2016 have caused more than 100 deaths, injured 120 people, collapsed 316,000 houses, and damaged 42,800 hectares of rice fields and 39,000 hectares of crops.

“In other countries, such terraced hydropower plants are not allowed,” he said. The terraced hydropower plant model continues to be developed in some localities despite the warnings 

“Developing terraced hydropower plants is a wrong program, the results of which are obvious,” he said.

Vietnam uses electricity generated by 37 large-scale hydropower plants. He believes the elimination of small terraced plants will in no way affect the country’s plan to develop power sources.

“The hydropower plant like Ho Ho, or terraced hydropower plants which don’t bring high economic benefits, should stop operation,” he said.

In fact, some experts in the past repeatedly suggested removing small-scale hydropower plants because they were not necessary. 

An expert said the problem lies in the “group of interest”. “There are VIPs who hold stakes in hydropower plants. Therefore, eliminating the plants is an impossible mission,” he said

He went on to say that only if the government is determined to deal with the plants will the problem be settled. 

The state and hydropower plant investors should sit together to discuss solutions. Investors should be asked to stop operation after they take back the investment capital.

However, in general, it will take too long to recover the investment capital, about 30 years. If so, the damages will be terrible. Therefore, the state should apply the policies which allow them to recover the investment capital within 10 years.


Another expert commented that in order to do that, the state needs to give financial support to investors but state funds are tight.

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