Stories of daring and touching careers…From the elaborate and creative journalistic works highly appreciated by the Final Jury of the 18th National Journalism Awards, it can be clearly seen that Vietnamese journalists continue to closely follow the vivid realities of social life, of the cause of innovation, construction and protection of the Fatherland, promptly and vividly reflecting the great achievements of historical significance that the country has achieved, especially continuing to demonstrate their mettle, dedication, and leadership in major, new and difficult issues of the country. Behind those elaborate, creative and dedicated journalistic works are stories of daring and touching careers... |
The most tearful song…
In mid-July 2023, it rained heavily in many places across the country. After each heavy rain, landslides occurred, not only causing property and economic damage but also causing human casualties.
Faced with that reality, at the request of VietnamPlus E-newspaper Editor-in-Chief Tran Tien Duan, journalist Hung Vo and his colleague, photojournalist Hoai Nam, quickly planned a field trip to a series of landslide "hotspot" areas in provinces and cities across the country to record the current situation.
Journalist Hung Vo said : “During our work, Hoai Nam and I witnessed and recorded countless images and stories of tragic accidents caused by landslides. The causes were not only natural disasters, but also the impact of human hands - man-made disasters.
That is the situation of cutting down mountains, destroying forests to build houses, tourist areas, planting industrial crops, spontaneous farming; thousands of landslides along traffic routes due to lack of embankments. Because of that, there were serious landslides that "took" dozens of lives that happened many years ago, but until now, the worries and obsessions of the living still exist.
Based on the information recorded during nearly 4 months of in-depth research, along with the opinions of experts, leaders of sectors and levels from the central to local levels, in early December 2023, journalist Hung Vo linked the content and built a series of articles on "The terrible disaster from natural disasters and landslides: The more destruction, the more pain!"
Journalists Hung Vo and Hoai Nam work at the landslide site in Huong Phung commune, Huong Hoa district, Quang Tri province.
“This is the series of articles that I shed the most tears; I have had many close calls with death because of the journey of driving alone day and night on many difficult roads in the middle of the forest and landslide canyons. Therefore, after each trip, facing danger at the scene, recording tragic incidents, I always worry and hope that the series of articles will “awaken” the living. And I spent a whole month, with many sleepless nights researching to complete this work of my passion” - journalist Hung Vo was moved.
Accompanying journalist Hung Vo, photojournalist Hoai Nam shared that the recent trip left him with many emotions, because each story was different but they all shared the pain of the landslide disaster.
Hoai Nam is still haunted by the story of the mother and her three children who could not escape death on that fateful night due to the negligence of the government. The one who passed away was too young, the one who stayed by the portrait still had incense smoke, a pain that will last forever.
On that same trip, the story of a couple who passed away after a night of pouring rain on the hill behind their house, a landslide swept away the entire house into the vast floodwaters. However, the deceased had no place to put an altar, the eldest son in the family had to leave his portrait at the church.
“Journalist Vo Manh Hung always told me, “go to the places, to the hot spots to get real stories from the people, listen to understand and share…” There were many emotions during this reporting trip, the stories made the two of us forget our fatigue to find the root of the problem, so that the pain from the terrible disaster from natural disasters would not last any longer…” - Hoai Nam confided.
A "plea" for responsibility for the future
A serious landslide buried a level 4 house, killing 3 mothers and children (a mother born in 1994 and 2 biological children - a 5-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy) in the early morning of April 30, 2023, in Duyet Trung ward, Cao Bang city. During a field trip to this mountainous province, as soon as they heard the news, journalists Hung Vo and Hoai Nam went to the family to burn incense and asked for permission to investigate the incident again as well as share the story as a warning to the living.
Journalist Hung Vo recalled that day, on an early October afternoon, inside a rented room of about 8 square meters. In a conversation with guests, in front of the camera, Duong Hieu choked up and said that before the incident, Hieu was selling goods for the April 30 - May 1 holiday. After returning home, because in the middle of the night, his wife and 2 children were sleeping soundly - afraid that they would wake up, Hieu did not go to sleep with them but lay in the living room. At around 2 a.m., hearing a thunderous collapse, Hieu woke up and saw dust and rocks all around. Extremely worried, Hieu called his wife and children, but no one answered.
In the depths of that pain, Hieu prayed many times “if only!” And what he wanted to convey was to take the “human disaster lesson” that caused the tragic death of his loved one, to awaken the living - especially officials and local authorities at all levels when “allowing” the construction of infrastructure projects to calculate their responsibilities and be more careful, so as not to carelessly cause heartbreaking incidents and loss of innocent lives.
In the series of articles, journalist Hung Vo not only comprehensively reflects on issues related to the impacts of flash floods and landslides in recent times, but also analyzes the objective, subjective, direct and indirect causes. From there, he mentions the "pleading" for responsibility for the future, as well as offers the most fundamental, effective and long-term safe solutions, to contribute to minimizing the risks caused by natural disasters and landslides that may occur.
Journalist Hung Vo interviewed Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee - Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee; Head of the Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention, Control and Search and Rescue of Cao Bang province Hoang Xuan Anh.
This series includes an introduction and 5 articles, presented in the form of Mega-story - a type of quality journalism in both content and form, carefully presented, not only helping readers access decent, luxurious articles; but also providing readers with in-depth content with the most complete, valuable and accurate "information tray".
Journalist Hung Vo said that, fortunately, right after the series of articles were published and widely shared, many localities across the country quickly took action to inspect and review landslide risk areas to promptly grasp the situation and overcome it. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also emphasized that in the coming time, ministries, branches and localities need to have specific solutions and absolutely not be subjective in the face of natural disasters and climate change.
Highly appreciating the content of the series, the representative of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment emphasized that in the coming time, along with early warning work, localities need to take early action on key risk points; resolutely relocate constructions and houses from points assessed as highly "vulnerable" to natural disasters.
On the international side, after reading this series of articles, the United Nations Development Program Resident Representative in Vietnam - Ms. Ramla Khalidi emphasized that in the coming time, UNDP will continue to closely cooperate and support the Vietnamese Government to realize a Greener, more sustainable and self-reliant Vietnam.
Hung Vo borrowed the words of the ancients to end the story with me: “Don’t eat too much so that your stomach can still contract, don’t dress too warmly so that you can still feel the weather” . Nature and the environment are the same, if you force them too much, it will cause unpredictable consequences. So eat a few less bites, it’s better to resist than to hurt!”
Hoa Giang
Source: https://www.congluan.vn/di-den-tan-noi-thau-hieu-va-chia-se--de-khong-ai-bi-bo-lai-phia-sau-post299577.html
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