QUẢNG TRỊ — Rubber growers in central Quảng Trị Province’s Vĩnh Linh District are devastated after some 1,000ha of their rubber plantations were damaged by tropical storm Sonca.

Sonca is the fourth storm to hit Việt Nam this year.

Some 300 out of 1,000ha are the most damaged, with 20-70 per cent of the rubber trees planted on the land on average knocked down by the storm, the Nông Nghiệp (Agriculture) online newspaper reported.

The plantation of Đoàn Quang Luật of Vĩnh Thủy Commune’s Trại Cá Village is the worst affected in the village, with some 600 rubber trees destroyed, equivalent to a loss of VNĐ600 million (US$26,400), since each tree can provide rubber latex worth VNĐ1 million ($44). The trees have been growed for a decade.

Resident Hoàng Văn Dưỡng of the same village earned VNĐ2 million ($88) per day selling rubber latex, but the storm destroyed some 300 rubber trees. This is the second time Dưỡng’s 2ha rubber plantation has been damaged by a storm – the first time was in 2013 – after which he spent VNĐ15 million ($660) recovering the plantation.

One hundred per cent of rubber plantations of households in Vĩnh Thủy Commune’s Tân Thủy Village have been affected by the storm, with the number of trees destroyed ranging from 50 to 400, village head Nguyễn Quang Hạnh said.

Since damaged rubber trees give only as much as 10-15 per cent of the total quantity of rubber latex that they can produce when healthy, residents of the district have requested the removal of rubber trees to grow either new rubber trees or peppers, chairman Trần Hữu Hùng of the district People’s Committee said.

Tropical storm Sonca hit the central province on Tuesday afternoon, blowing away roofs of 57 houses, damaging 213 business establishments and submerging some 1,000ha of paddy fields in the districts of Hải Lăng, Triệu Phong and Gio Linh, vice chairman of the province’s People’s Committee Hà Sỹ Đồng said. — VNS