There has been a lull in our blog as we have faced the difficult realities of living in Hanoi. We have observed a series of unfolding environmental catastrophes here.
Mercury: On August 28th the Rang Dong Light Bulb factory caught fire. Residents were told to evacuate and then not to evacuate. The factory said they no longer used mercury in the manufacturing of the light bulbs and then admitted a few days later they indeed used mercury. As anxious westerners became hysterical on social media, we avoided the area, but wanted to believe the factory. No one was to consume food sold in the area for a period of one month. Then word broke over a week later that there indeed had been mercury. The first seed of doubt was planted: How was one to know?
AQI: Then the AQI spiked in October to record highs for Hanoi. We awoke one morning unable to see the lake out of our window. The air continued like this for days, and we began to worry about the children, about the winter, about what would happen next. It hit and stayed at 200. Not like Delhi’s recent 1200 spike, but still it was an apocalyptic scene.
We made phone calls, found spots for the children back in Nashville and in Saigon schools and then took off for a week trip to Taipei. Again and again we contemplated leaving and then decided to stay. One year is a short time and we have much winter travel planned. But a new cynicism has set in about the air and the environment. The burning continues, cars and motorbikes have no emissions enforcement, energy plants run on coal. Development here moves at a furious pace and from our window we see the future that has already arrived. We breathed in the delightful clear air in Taipei, only a week after we drove past the Taiwanese factories contributing to the air pollution in the idyllic countryside of Ninh Binh.
Meanwhile, the government and outraged bloggers spent time disputing whether IQ AIR’s website accurately listed Hanoi as the worst air (instead of the 2nd worst). Reuters reported that “the criticism of AirVisual snowballed after Vietnamese Facebook user Vu Khac Ngoc, an online chemistry teacher with almost 350,000 followers on the site, said in a post that AirVisual was manipulating its data to sell air purifiers made by its parent company, IQair.”
Water: On October 8th, a tanker dumped oil into the Red River, contaminating the water supply of many residents in Hanoi with styrene and other contaminants. Rumors abound about what happened and why. It took days for the water to be declared unsafe, even after residents complained about the blackish color and the stench. The company knew about the contamination, but did not take action. Our area was unaffected
Seventeen days after the contamination, and after days of declaring itself the victim, Vinaconex Water Supply Joint Stock Company (Viwasupco) finally took responsibility and apologized. The water has been declared safe but some residents are still afraid to drink it.
The Worry: Living in Hanoi is about moving forward. It is about hoping that the purified water your purchase is as advertised, that the food you buy is not contaminated, that air masks work. The locals worry, we worry, but life continues. It reminds us of the importance of trust and the fragility of that trust. As Trump fights the EPA clean air standards, and images of a distant melting ice cap circulate, living here means we cannot avert our eyes. The Mekong Delta is now threatened with its very existence, the air is in free fall, and water is contaminated. None of this is new. Contamination here is as much the product of development today as it is the history of war. We have the luxury of leaving, but those living here do not.
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