Water from canal floods hundreds of homes in Ho Chi Minh City overnight

At around 11:45 pm, Alley 114, Alley 84 and several roads around Street No. 11 in Thu Duc Ward were deeply flooded.

Water poured into homes, damaging belongings.

Residents moved furniture and other possessions to higher places, while some took family members elsewhere to spend the night.

Residents said the area had experienced only minor flooding in the afternoon despite heavy rain.

At around 7:00 pm, however, water suddenly surged from the Thu Duc Canal and rose rapidly, leaving many residents little time to respond.

Nguyen Ut, who has lived in the area for more than 20 years, said he had never seen the area flood so severely.

At the entrances to Alleys 114 and 84 and around Ba Tra Bridge, local authorities were deployed there, warning people not to enter deeply flooded areas and helping residents move their belongings and evacuate to safer places.

Duong Ngo Thanh, 36, a resident of Alley 114 on Street No. 11, said that when the water suddenly rose at around 7:00 pm, he carried his two children and took his wife to a hotel for the night before returning home to look after their belongings.

Some residents who stayed behind raised their beds and other furniture, while some even spent the night sitting on their motorbikes as they waited for the water to recede so they could begin cleaning up the next morning.

A representative of the Thu Duc Ward administration told Tuoi Tre (Youth) online newspaper on Wednesday evening that the initial cause of the severe flooding was a combination of heavy rain and high tides.

Some sections of drainage infrastructure related to the Beltway No. 2 project, along with parts of the Thu Duc Canal embankment, also had problems, causing water to overflow into the residential area, the representative said.

At the end of Alley 114 on Street No. 11, water overflowed a section of the embankment and poured into the residential area, causing widespread flooding.

Authorities mobilized pumps and took other measures to reduce the flooding. Ward police and local security forces have been deployed to deeply flooded areas to help residents reach safety and move or raise their belongings to minimize damage.

The exact cause of the flooding is still being investigated.