Mrs Phuong and 2 grandchildren – Photo was taken by Mr Le Thanh Tung on joint the Rapid Assessment
“The flash floods had been sudden to occur quicky, making me unable to arrange furnitures. At that time, the family has only two elderly grandparents and two children, 7 and other 3-year-old respectively. Their parents have not returned from working far away from home. " - Mrs. Phuong said as she escaped to take advantage of drying a small amount of rice left over from the flood. She clearly recalls: "The floodwaters rose quickly, it also was pitch dark because of the power outage, but the there were only two old people and two young children, so they did not dare run away.
Before the flood came, she already harvested timely 7 bags (one bag is equally 50kg). "This amount of rice is intended to be enough for the two of us to eat a full year, but now it's all wet." - Mrs. Phuong chirped and pointed at the pile of rice drying in the corner of the yard. However, the floodwaters increased suddenly, all 7 bags of rice were damaged, and can only be kept for poultry food. Mrs. Phuong said slowly: “Saying that, I do not have any chickens and ducks to feed”. She raised nearly 25 chickens, of which 4 laid eggs daily for their children to eat, but were swept away by the floods ”. So all the wealth harvested after 4 months of farming and the poultry daily meals were swept away by the floods, she could only rely on the help from the donors.
Winter is almost here, Mrs. Phuong thought anxiously: "This winter, I probably do not know what to eat". Parents normally work as assistant craftsmen, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic, they cannot do it regularly.
Having been raged by the COVID-19 outbreak, the country’s central coastal region has suffered unprecedented flooding from prolonged downpours and successive typhoons since early October. When asked if she was worried about the upcoming storms hitting Quang Dien district, how she would live at that time, she smiled honestly and calmly said: "we have nothing left, my house has nothing to lose anymore!".
This story is written by Mr Tung Le – a staff of Save the Children in Vietnam to the joint Rapid Assessment with UN Agencies corried out in Otober 2020.
