Residents of a ‘cemetery village’ in Binh Thanh District of Ho Chi Minh City have used underground water from the cemetery for 20 years.
‘Cemetery water’ is used for bathing while water for cooking is carried in 20-liter cans from outside areas.
The ‘cemetery village’ is located in two bordering residential zones, No. 2 and 3, in Ward 12 of Binh Thanh which now has around 800 households.
Actually, it has spontaneously developed over decades, gathering mainly poor people who have no land and had to occupy a cemetery to build their houses.
Because of the lack of planning, the area has no water supply system and the addresses of the houses in the ‘cemetery village’ are complicated to find. The address of the house of Tra Van Thanh is an example. It reads ’290/40/55/5 No Trang Long Street in residential zone No. 2, Ward 12, Binh Thanh’.
Tran Ba Phuc, head of group 30 in zone No. 2, said the residential areas of zone No. 2 and 3 previously belonged to a cemetery. Poor people just came to occupy it and made it as crowded as it is now.
Though living here, most residents of the ‘cemetery village’ have their permanent registry in other locations of Cu Chi District, to the north of the city, or neighboring Binh Duong and Binh Phuoc Provinces.
The residents cannot register their residency in the ‘cemetery village’ because the whole area has been suspended from construction for planning in the future, Phuc said.
Taking risks with underground water
Nguyen Thi Vui, another resident of group 30 in zone No. 2, pointed down at the foundation of her house and said, “Three tombs are under my house but I have to dig a well close to them for using underground water.
“Not too far from here is the well of Thanh.
“It’s terrible to use this water and we have had to close our eyes to use it over the past 20 years because we have had no choice.”
She admitted many of them are unable to afford to buy clean water for daily bathing.
In reality, the ‘cemetery village’ in Binh Thanh District is not a rare case. Remote localities in Ho Chi Minh City have similar situations where poor people have to occupy uninhabited areas to temporarily build their houses and have lived like this for decades.
Along the Rach Lao Canal in Ward 15 of District 8 there has existed a similar ‘cemetery village’. Local children have played with tombs there for years.
Carrying water
It is a common image to see residents of the ‘cemetery village’ in Binh Thanh carrying home clean water from neighboring areas at midday, the resting time between a day’s two working shifts.
Those who cannot arrange time have to hire others to carry clean water, said Thanh.
The nine members in Than’s family spend an average of VND2 million (US$96) a month buying clean water for cooking, according to the 61-year-old man. His family consumes twenty 20-liter cans of clean water a day.
Each 20-liter can is priced at 1,500 dong (a U.S. dollar is roughly 21,200 dong) and 3,000 dong for delivery.
Hoai An, living in zone No. 2, confessed that, “This village of 800 households is like living on an isolated island.”
It is a waste of labor to carry water every day, she added. However, all households here are poor and have no chance to move to other locations.
Recently, authorities have promised that they are going to install a water supply system to the ‘cemetery village’ in Binh Thanh by the end of this year.
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Đăng ký: VietNam News
