CCTV9英语新闻：Mekong Delta fights losing battle against salt water

The first Mekong-Lancang meeting got underway on Wednesday as representatives of the five countries along the river discussed the drought affecting many of the seventy million people that depend on its waters. But while some in Thailand and Laos have been temporarily relieved by waters released from upstream in China, those at the other end of the river in Vietnam are fighting a losing battle against the salt water of the South China sea as it invades their land.

 

"Water Water everywhere…nor any drop to drink…"

 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, written to describe a freezing ocean voyage, but it aptly describes the Mekong river today. Swollen and bloated with water, it doesn’t look like it’s in the midst of a drought, but this might as well be poison.

 

When you travel around the Mekong Delta it's hard to imagine with the rivers so full of water, there's a drought afflicting this entire region. But what you can't see is that this is majority salt water, flown in from the sea, because there's a nearly 50 percent drop in the level of the water coming down stream, and that's allowing the sea water to flow in up to 90 kilometers inland.

 

This is now a part of the new reality for Nguyen Thanh Hai and his family. They have farmed this lush countryside for generations…getting as many as three rice harvests a year. Now freshwater has to be trucked in from hundreds of kilometres inland…and this is just for the family and their livestock…he’s been forced to abandon his crops.

 

"We do nothing. All the land, we just leave there. We'll do nothing. No crops, no rice planting. We wait for the rain," Rice farmer Nguyen Thanh Hai said.

 

Every household in this province of one point six million people now has to buy in water.

 

All of the freshwater is polluted, and they can only hope that rains arrive when expected in Late May.

 

The Mekong splits into 9 as it races into the Delta and feeds into the sea.

 

But with over the last 2 years, the flow from upstream has been reduced by fifty percent and with little rainfall this year, the sea has pushed upstream, threatening the livelihood of all those in the delta.

 

"In the Mekong Delta, flooding is very important for the people in Mekong because during the flooding time, the water in Mekong brings everything - food and free water," Dr. Vu Ngoc Long, director of Human Ecology of Vietnam Academy of Science, said.

 

Many of the Mekong deltas farmers are now forced to sit and wait for the rainy season to start. Mrs Phuong had her entire crop wiped out, but the encroachment of the seawater on her land may have a longer term impact.

 

"First of all the saltwater kills the crops when it gets into the rice field. Secondly it destroys the soil, and when we plant the next crop of rice that dies too. And the salt affected soil, we can’t plant other crops either. We can do nothing," Mrs Phuong said.

 

This region, known as the rice basket of Vietnam, is seeing its fertile lands polluted by the sea. The only ones who seem to be enjoying the waterare the ducks.