Shopkeepers in Vietnam’s Hue City traumatized by heavy losses after floods

Across the city, hundreds of merchants are struggling to recover, washing and salvaging whatever remains from their ruined stock.

For many, losses have reached hundreds of millions of Vietnamese dong. (VND100 million = US$3,800)

Sitting quietly in his warehouse filled with mud on Nguyen Hue Street, 69-year-old Ho Khanh My, a rice trader in Thuan Hoa Ward, said he had never imagined such devastation in more than three decades of business.

“After the historic flood of 1999, I thought we would never face something like this again. However, this year, the water rose so fast,” he said.

Dozens of metric tons of rice in his warehouse were soaked by the flood.

“When the water surged that night, I could only watch helplessly as it poured into the warehouse," he recalled.

“With dozens of metric tons of rice, there was no way to move everything in time. 

"I just prayed the water would stop rising."

Once the flood receded, My hired workers to sort through the damage.

Around eight metric tons of rice was spoiled and had to be given away to local fish and pig farmers.

His initial loss was estimated at over VND100 million.

In the heart of the city, countless shopkeepers faced similar devastation after the floods.

They cleaned up with heavy hearts.

As soon as the water drained away, they picked up their brooms and buckets, scooping out floodwater, scrubbing mud from the floors, and salvaging what little remained from their soaked goods.

Huynh Ngoc Sang, owner of an electronics shop on Nguyen Hue Street, said the flood rose much higher and faster than expected.

“I wasn’t in town when it happened, so I couldn’t rush back to move things," he said.

“The water toppled the shelves and damaged a lot of products.

"Many machines in storage were completely submerged."

His losses, still uncounted, include inventory, equipment, and important business documents – all ruined.

In Thuy Xuan Ward, Nguyen Thi Kim Loan, 60, was still shaken by the speed of the rising waters.

“Every year, the water rises a bit, maybe half a meter, and I can move my goods to higher ground," she said.

"However, this time it came too fast – within an hour, the whole house was flooded."

Her small shop, which also serves as a distributor of forestry supplies, was submerged.

Bags of goods and boxes of pesticides were all soaked and destroyed.

She estimated her losses at tens of millions of Vietnamese dong, a huge sum for a small household business.