Cua Dai Beach in Hoi An is being threatened by chronic erosion.

Cua Dai Beach suffers from serious erosion

300 metres of Cua Dai Beach eroded following strong waves on November 26. The local authorities have continued to struggle to prevent the sea from eating further inland.

Luong Thi Be, owner of a restaurant just 10 metres away from the beach said erosion had occurred since 2013 and they were losing tourists and customers. The furniture of many of the beachfront restaurants have been swept away to the sea and their businesses are badly affected.

"If this problem is not dealt with, the restaurants here will disappear," she said.

Nguyen Van Dung, chairman of Hoi An, said Hoi An had spent hundreds of billions on to repairing. He went on to say that they were asking for VND35bn in funding to build a one-kilometre-long embankment.

"We bought the materials from Netherlands and will carry out the construction as soon as the funds arrive because the threat is clear now," he said. "Because of the limited budget we only patch places up."

At a conference on Cua Dai Beach's erosion in September, many foreign and local experts agreed that hydropower dams on the Vu Gia-Thu Bon River system might be hindering sedimentation downstream and responsible for this severe erosion. The authorities were also encouraged to tighten inspections of sand exploitation activities and hydropower constructions upstream while carrying out other preventive measures.

Dinh Van Thu, chairman of Quang Nam Province said many solutions had been proposed but most of them required huge amounts of funding. The province has reported the problem so Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and leaders of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will inspect the scene and decide on better solutions in coming time.