Hundreds of people in Vietnam’s Central Highland province of Gia Lai are living in peril after a hydropower plant dam broke on Aug 1, damaging hundreds of hectares of crops. The dam of the 5.5-MW Ia Krel hydropower plant suddenly collapsed for the second time after its first fracture on June 12, flooding hundreds of hectares of crops and hundreds of houses and separating some parts of residential areas. The reservoir, which is designed to contain roughly 10 million cubic meters of water, poured out nearly four million cu.m of water and rapidly inundated the downstream area of the Se San River. The incident, which is attributed to wrong design of sewages and low construction quality, caused chaos in the lowland. This power facility, invested by a private company named Bao Long Gia Lai, is among several hydropower plants with dams broken in Vietnam to date. Most hydropower plants are located in the Central Highlands region. Hydropower accounts for 44% of the country’s total power output. Currently, Vietnam’s total power capacity is about 28,165 MW. But the construction of many hydropower plants in Vietnam has destroyed a large area of forest, taking away the locals’ economic interest and partly causing natural disasters including flood and fresh floods. (Sai Gon Giai Phong – Saigon Liberation Aug 4 p6)
