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| Old trees have been planted since the period of French rule on the two sides of Hoang Van Thu Street in HCM City. The city is now trying to figure out how to preserve the trees while keeping traffic safe. — VNA/VNS Photo Doan Tung |
HCM CITY — HCM City authorities are worried about how to preserve old trees around the city while ensuring road-users’ safety at the same time given branches and trees themselves fell during the recent rains.
The storm early last Friday uprooted a diep tree aged over 100 years with a trunk 1.5m across.
The mishap damaged most of the electricity cables on Tran Hung Dao Street in District 1 and caused a portion of the outer wall of a police office to collapse.
Earlier the same day a 30m dau tree was uprooted in front of a house at 1433 Ba Thang Hai Street in District 11.
Just 20m away, another dau tree fell on a house owned by a person named Ly To.
To said he had narrowly escaped death by scurrying away as soon as he heard rumbling sounds. Immediately afterwards a large brick had landed exactly where he had been sitting and watching TV, he said.
Ho Thi Nga, whose house at 207 Nguyen Kim Street in District 10 has a 100-year-old dau tree in front, said, “The life of my family hangs by a thread when living near an old tree.”
“The tree’s branches have repeatedly crashed down on the street,” she said. “We have petitioned local authorities to cut it down or clip the branches, but none has so far come to handle our complaints.”
Many old trees with luxuriant canopies on Ly Thuong Kiet and An Duong Vuong Street have tilted to one side and face a serious risk of falling any time.
Experts’ views
Experts say old trees standing by themselves on streets are at a higher risk of collapse than those in clusters in parks.
Authorities do not pay adequate care to old trees, they say, pointing to the fact that every tree gets the same periodic care based merely on the number of yellow leaves or manifestation of plant diseases.
They also say the procedure to treat diseased trees is “cumbersome and time-consuming.”
Dr Tran Quang Diep of the HCM City University of Agriculture and Forestry says old trees need special care and constant surveillance.
Regular tending of the trees must be done using machines to exactly diagnose their status in terms of hollowness and diseases, he adds.
Dr Ngo An of the same university says a significant number of green trees in the city are suffering from age, diseases, hollowness and tilting, warning more of them would collapse if the checking remains in its current crude form.
It is possible to minimise the damage caused by tree collapses if their management is more scientific, he says.
Many experts say trees can only serve up to a certain age, emphasising the need to prescribe age limits for each species before cutting them down.
Old trees should only be conserved when they are grown in parks or on historic streets, they say. —
