{"id":1529,"date":"2014-09-10T10:15:19","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T03:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/?p=1529"},"modified":"2014-10-01T16:31:17","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T09:31:17","slug":"dams-vs-airplanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/dams-vs-airplanes\/","title":{"rendered":"Dams vs. Airplanes"},"content":{"rendered":"

In August 2014, a 5.5 MW hydropower dam broke for the second time<\/a> in Gia Lai Province.\u00a0 Luckily no one was killed. This isn\u2019t the first time that dams have leaked or broken in Vietnam but what was striking was the fact that according to the article the construction company ignored basic safety consideration by building the dam in the wet season.\u00a0 As a result, the cement didn\u2019t dry properly and couldn\u2019t withstand the water pressure.\u00a0 After the dam failed for the first time in June 2013, the provincial government ordered the company to suspend construction.\u00a0 The company refused.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The dam broke for the second time last Friday, inundating 60ha of crops and damaging 30ha of rubber trees in Duc Co District (Photo: VOV Online)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This episode tells us a lot about how dams are built in Vietnam.\u00a0 First, safety concerns and the voice of the provincial government can be safely ignored.\u00a0 Second, after the disaster, the focus is on finding out who\u2019s responsible.\u00a0 However, no one is ever held accountable.\u00a0 The construction company hasn\u2019t been charged with criminal negligence; no one has lost their job.\u00a0 The lack of accountability can probably be traced to the ownership structure of the company and the associated conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

Just imagine if the government had to advise Airbus or Boeing not to build airplanes with substandard parts and one of their airplanes then crashed.\u00a0 There would be international outrage that these companies were knowingly selling Vietnam defective equipment.\u00a0 Yet when it comes to local dam construction companies, there seems to be no anger, just a passive acceptance that such irresponsibility is the norm and nothing can be done about it.<\/p>\n

Anonymous Contributor<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In August 2014, a 5.5 MW hydropower dam broke for the second time in Gia Lai Province. Luckily no one was killed. This isn\u2019t the first time that dams have leaked or broken in Vietnam but what was striking was the fact that according to the article the construction company ignored basic safety consideration by building the dam in the wet season. As a result, the cement didn\u2019t dry properly and couldn\u2019t withstand the water pressure. After the dam failed for the first time in June 2013, the provincial government ordered the company to suspend construction. The company refused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[56,55,65],"post_series":[],"class_list":["post-1529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","tag-dams","tag-hydropower","tag-sustainable-development","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1529"},{"taxonomy":"post_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nature.org.vn\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_series?post=1529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}