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Rising Sea Levels Threaten to Flood Southern Vietnam by 2100

Ralph Jennings

   HO CHI MINH CITY - It's not quite the first thing on everyone's minds
   in the booming financial center of Vietnam, but everyone kind of knows
   it might happen: Global sea levels pushed up by climate change
   threatens to flood the city by the year 2100.

   That threat resurfaced last week when U.S.-based nonprofit news
   organization Climate Central published a report in Nature magazine
   detailing timelines and locations for ever-rising seas. From 10% to
   one-third of Vietnam's population would be impacted, the Oct. 29 study
   says.

   Ho Chi Minh City, population 9 million, shows little outward concern
   for now. Cranes speckle the skyline to build new housing for the people
   who are steadily moving in from other parts of Vietnam for work or
   study. Ho Chi Minh City serves as an administrative center for the
   growing number of foreign-invested companies that manufacture goods in
   Vietnam for export, a source of 6%-7% annual economic expansion.

   But flooding regularly hits the populous, flat coastal regions just
   south of the city, making people keenly aware of what would
   increasingly happen if the adjacent South China Sea breaches its high
   tide line by 2100 as suggested by the report's author, Climate Central.

   "We do have to deal with climate change," said Do Van Chanh, 20, a
   third-year student at a Ho Chi Minh City University.

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