The documentary Water Bomb opens with footage of VTV reporters in Quang Ninh and Hai Phong working on Typhoon Yagi on September 7, when the storm reached its maximum strength and strengthened to Category 8 within a few hours. It was the strongest super typhoon in 30 years and swept through 10 provinces before weakening to a tropical depression.
But that's just the beginning. The circulation after the storm caused flooding in a number of provinces and cities of Hanoi, Son La, Bac Giang, Ha Giang, Tuyen Quang, Lao Cai and Yen Bai. Floodwaters on many rivers reached alert level 2. Yen Bai is used to rain after storms and is no stranger to local flooding, but the provincial capital has never been submerged in such a deluge. On Sept. 9, after Typhoon No. 3 (Yagi) passed, the northern mountainous provinces were hit by the heaviest rains on record, causing the water level in Thac Ba Lake to rise steadily.
If the main dam breaks, it would be a disaster. People in the downstream area will be the first to be affected by a very strong current. In an interview in the film, Nguyen Van Quyen, general director of the Thac Ba Hydropower Joint Stock Company, said: "The most important thing is to protect the safety of the reservoir, because if the main dam breaks, it can cause a huge flood that would sweep everything from here to the Red River."
The film also recalls the historic flood of 1971 in the North. In August of that year, a great flood broke the dikes in 13 provinces and left catastrophic consequences. The flood in the North in September 2024 was not as bad as the one in 1971, but with its unpredictable development, no one dared to think about the consequences.
The documentary Water Bomb promptly captured candid footage of a tense moment at the Thac Ba hydropower plant and timely, drastic instructions from the central to the local level. The dam has been secured, but the authorities still have a lot of work to do to prevent this from happening in the future, and the operation of the dam during the flood season needs to be very flawless.
Just a week after the devastating storm and flood, the Water Bomb film crew used candid footage to tell the story of people's life and death moments in the face of storms, floods and natural disasters.
