Hundreds in Vietnam Protest Dam Upgrade, Fearing Floods
Hundreds of residents in a largely Catholic district of central Vietnam’s Quang Binh province protested on Thursday to oppose the enlargement of a local dam, saying that an increase in the dam’s height will raise the risk of floods, Vietnamese sources said.
The Rao Nan Dam in Quang Binh’s Quang Trach district sits upstream from nine different communes to which it supplies water, and authorities have long planned an upgrade to provide greater capacity during the area’s dry season.
A proposed increase in the dam’s height of from three to four meters above its already 20-meter height will threaten the lives of communities downstream, though, one local priest told RFA’s Vietnamese Service.
