Flood-proof houses help people in the Midwest weather floods

As of 2013, the Flood Resistant House is a community development project with the goal of building safe houses and developing sustainable livelihoods for poor people in areas affected by natural disasters and climate change. Their motto is “millions of barrels of instant noodles are not equal to tiles.”

As of September 2020, the Flood Protection House has successfully supported 795 homes in Quang Ninh, Quang Nam, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Khanh Hoa, Ben Tre, Soc Trang and Hau Giang provinces in building and improving home. In addition, they have developed 9 safe house models to adapt to natural disasters, especially types of floods such as mud flood, tube flood, flash flood, flood, river flood, and some special flood. special.

In addition to a unique floating houseboat with an area of ​​16m2 (4×4), other models in the project require a minimum of 10m2 to avoid flooding. Depending on the actual needs of use and the reciprocal capacity of the homes, the total construction area will vary from 35m2 to 50m2, and the two-story houses can have an area of ​​up to 100m2.

Therefore, the final price of each house is not fixed, ranging between 80 and 180 million dong. In which, the Anti-Flood House supports an average of 45 million VND / household. For the rest of the budget, households will mobilize their own resources, family, other financial sources, or will correspond to labor and will make use of materials from the old house that can be used.

The Anti-Flood House has 7 criteria to choose the homes to benefit, namely: located in the area affected by natural disasters or climate change; households have needs and incentives to build safe houses; households that belong to poor circumstances, close to the poor or difficult; households with a large number of members and a young demographic; the construction site has legal ownership, there is no dispute, it is not planned or relocated; the project will support the construction design, households must participate in the design process and meet the project requirements; The project will support funds of $ 20 to $ 35 million for renovations and $ 30 to $ 45 million for new homes.

In 2020, the project has completed 80/93 houses in different regions. Building on this support, the surrounding people can learn, replicate and develop models of safe houses against climate change and natural disasters.

Currently, the Anti-Flood House is closely monitoring the situation and will conduct a survey to plan support, make additional plans and continue to build safe houses in Hue, Quang Tri and Quang Nam: 3 areas suffering. the most severe damage in Storm No. 5 and the last flood.

During the last flood in the central region, most of cHomes supported by the Anti-Flood House are safe and can actively prepare for the situation. Hearing the news of the storm, people often buy food to store and move important furniture and livestock and poultry to protect themselves from flooding (if it is a house with a foundation, a guard house); repair and reinforcement of the buoy house. Thus, human and material damage is minimized.

Typically in Tan Hoa (Quang Binh), the flood water surpassed the story in 1999, up to 3 m in height, when the houseboat, if the water rose, could promote its effects. Since the first houseboats the project made, people can now learn and build safe houses on their own.

A floating house in Tan Hoa during the last flood in Quang Binh (Photo: Ngoc Thang)

Sharing the idea of ​​building flood-proof houses, Ms Jang Kều, founder of the Anti-Flood project, once shared: “For most people, they want to keep their homeland, I don’t want to move to another place. , so I will rebuild his own house, which collapsed but is resistant to floods and storms. With the idea of ​​community support for the beneficiaries to build their own house, she goes further: creating a community model that helps each other, towards a sustainable life.