KON TUM — A stretch of a major embankment on National Route 24 in the Central Highlands city of Kon Tum has eroded while under construction.

About 87 metres of a VNĐ31 billion (US$1.36 million) road-cum-embankment stretch, running through the city’s Duy Tân Ward, was eroded after heavy rainfall in the middle of July, the Lao Động (Labour) newspaper reported.

Its slope was broken, revealing soil underneath. Hundred-metre long cracks appeared on the surface, according to the report.

The erosion endangers the buildings of the city’s People’s Procuracy, the city’s medical centre, and the Kon Tum Province’s centre of culture and sports for children and youth as they are located near the eroded embankment stretch.

Nguyễn Quang Hải, director of the city’s Department of Construction, said that underground water clogging was probably the cause of erosion.

“Groundwater was unable to pass through the clay foundation of the embankment,” he said. “It had to permeate through shallower ground layers, which inevitably caused land erosion.”

“The pitching of concrete on the slope of the embankment stretch was not done properly to protect it from rains,” he added. “Plus there was no drainage system downstream to drain rainwater.”

The Kon Tum People’s Committee – the investor of the project – is responsible for fixing the erosion, he said.

A representative from the Gia Hưng Construction Consultant Company Ltd., the consultant unit of the project, said that heavy rainfall and floods created flows of groundwater that might have had saturated the soil underneath the embankment stretch and led to erosion.

The project’s budget was inefficient for the company to foresee such a risk, he told Lao Động.

The eroded embankment stretch is part of a VNĐ102 billion ($4.49 million) embankment project on National Route 24 that is intended to provide protection for major constructions in Kon Tum City during the rainy season.

Erosion is not the only challenge for the project. Although the project has been supported with VNĐ75.4 billion ($3.32 million) from the State’s budget, the city is currently unable to provide the remaining VNĐ26.6 billion ($1.17 million) of capital investment for the project. — VNS