Drought kills Vietnam rice crops; worsens water crisis in Mekong Delta

Hanoi

THE nine acres in southern Vietnam that double as rice paddy and shrimp pond for farmer Nguyen Thi Tam have become a wasteland. After the worst drought in 90 years, almost nothing grows.

Ms Tam's family had no income for two harvests because the rice crop failed and the shrimp died. They ran up US$8,000 in debt - more than twice her earnings in a typical year. To make ends meet, Ms Tam plans to leave her village to work at a factory hundreds of miles away. Many others in the area already have fled, she said, including her daughter-in-law, who could not endure the poverty.