Grave concerns and even anger has arisen among residents of the capital over a city water pipeline from Da River, which has just broken for the ninth time, giving rise to questions about construction quality.

Digging up the broken pipeline

The latest incident occurred on July 12 in Hoai Duc District. Just two days ago, another part of the same pipeline broke and affected thousands of households in the city. Nguyen Van Ton, Director of Vinaconex Water Supply JSC, said, "We are digging to see the extent of the damage. We'll fix it during the night and the water supply will be back to normal at around 1am July 13."

This is the ninth time the pipeline has broken since the pipeline went into operation six years ago. City authorities are planning on building a second pipeline. 

According to the Ministry of Construction's inspection, the pipeline broke because the materials were not to standard for supplying such huge amounts of water to the city. The chairman of Hanoi People's Committee said, "The main responsibility falls on Vinaconex Water Supply JSC, who surveyed, designed and chose the materials for construction." However, he also admitted that the municipal authority did not fully collaborate with Vinaconex during the design and construction process.

Lawyer Vi Van Dien, head of Thien Minh Law Firm, said that police should investigate the contractors who built the pipeline for possible violations. The water pipeline from Da River was supposed to be a key project, and should have been under strict supervision. However, the pipeline has broken multiple times and wasted a huge amount from the state budget. This is a serious problem, yet no organisations or individuals have taken responsibility.

Dien went on to say that this case has signs of deliberate violations of state regulations which have already caused serious consequences. Dien said that this is the reason why police should investigate this case in order to expose the responsible individuals and organisations.

Moreover, he said, the Ministry of Construction should directly manage the next project so that it will not fall into the hand of weak and inexperienced contractors.