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| The Dives dressed in purple and fine linen |
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| And the Lazareus cold and hungry calling for help |
To celebrate the 1000th anniversary of Hanoi, Vietnam has spent roughly 4.5 billion dollars or 10% of its national budget to finance the 10 day historic event. The multiday celebration include a series of traditional music performances, fashion shows, historical and art exhibits, military demonstrations and parades, along with fireworks displays in 28 sites, food festival and travel tours. For this grand event to take place planning has been underway for months ahead; and also the festival is delayed two months after its true and correct date of anniversary so it can be coincide with the Chinese Independence Day of Oct 1.
The mosaic artwork, a state-of-the- art ceramic wall picture 6km in length, depicting the Vietnamese decorated history and culture in various stages, is the latest pride of event organizers as it has been recognized by the Guinness Book of Record as the longest mosaic wall picture.
But only a few hundred miles south of Hanoi, in the central region of Vietnam where the risks of intense monsoon, torrential rains, floods have long become the fact of life every year there has no preparation ever been made by the government, people are struggling to survive the fury flood in decades which already claimed 55 lives and 22 missing cases.
Among the most affected provinces, Quang Binh had 35,000 homes totally submerged, leaving thousands of residents homeless with their crops and livestock washed away. Due to the fast rising water level and the slow response of local officials, large areas in the region have been devastated seriously and require large scale emergency assistance to arrive.
The Caritas of Vinh diocese has been moving swiftly in responding to the tremendous needs and sufferings of the people in the most devastated areas. Within 24 hours after the storm struck the area, on Oct.4, Bishop Paul Maria Cao Dinh Thuyen - former Bishop of Vinh - and Fr. Peter Nguyen Van Vinh surveyed the damage in Huong Khe bringing tons of instant noodles to local priests in order to distribute among the disaster victims who were being trapped to the roof tops of their house as their possessions and food supply had been washed away.
As the water subsiding, the threat of waterborne illness and shortage of food supply will be zeroing in, judging from countless past experiences, one can only wonder if the government will have anything left in their already stretching too thin budget for the flood victims. Or they will once again rely on the religious charities, the Vietnamese overseas people, and international communities to carry the burden of responsibility as they always did in the past?