60-year-old Vietnamese woman survived nine days trapped in a well. H’Van Ajun left her house for work in the morning and failed to return later that evening. Family members and local residents began searching but to no avail. Nine days later locals heard a scream echoing from an abandoned well near the field she had worked and found her trapped 20 meters beneath. H’Van was admitted to the hospital in severe condition with a fractured left rib. The patient is now in stable condition, but her memory was damaged because she failed to recognize family members according to her sister.
7,000 km walked by Europeans Simon Niggli and Christoph Obbmascher to raise funds for underprivileged children in Vietnam. The two spent more than a year walking across 19 countries since their departure on January 18, 2015. All donations raised during their trip were transferred to World Vision, an education and development organization. The sponsorship is part of World Vision’s Area Development Program, which has been in place in Vietnam for 15 years. There are now 40 Area Development Programs and 16 special projects in 15 provinces throughout the country.
15 trillion VND overpass, linking a roundabout near Tan Son Nhat International Airport with downtown Saigon, is planned to help ease traffic congestion. The 9.5km overpass, starting at Lang Cha Ca roundabout in Tan Binh District and ending in Binh Thanh District, will help reduce serious gridlocks around the airport, said Le Quoc Binh, CEO of Ho Chi Minh City Infrastructure Investment (CII) JSC. The company, which has proposed to execute the project under a built-operate-transfer (BOT) agreement with the city, expects construction to start next year and completed in three years. Streets leading to Tan Son Nhat have been suffering from constant traffic congestion as more than 30,000 vehicles enter and leave the airport every day.
57 new caves discovered in central Vietnam. Officials from Quang Binh Province said a team from the British Caving Research Association and experts from the Vietnam National University, forest rangers and locals made the discovery. Among the new caves is one that stretches nearly three kilometers and was probably formed five million years ago under what used to be a lake. The water is gone but traces of strong currents are visible on the cave walls. Howard Limbert from the British cave association said the five-million-year-old cave has been named Hoa Huong, after the husband and wife who helped with the discovery. The association has been exploring caves in Quang Binh since 1990, creating a map to 311 of them, including the world’s largest cave—Son Doong.
6 Vietnamese were caught in Japan for stealing melons. Police in Japan’s Asahi City arrested the group after they stole 112 melons. The arrest was made soon after the suspects made off with the melons from a farm in Boso Peninsula. The men raided the farm around 2:30am and targeted a brand of melon called Iioka Takami, a specialty of the city, valued at USD640, which they said they had intended to eat.
22 endangered pangolins were rescued by a wildlife center in Vietnam. Police in Ninh Binh arrested three people who were trafficking the animals from Hue to consumers in the north. Pangolins, also known as anteaters, are facing extinction because some consider their meat a delicacy while their scales are used to make boots and shoes. The scales are also used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat conditions such as psoriasis and poor circulation, despite the lack of adequate scientific evidence.
270,000 USD was the winning bid for a pair of handmade 500-kilogram jars made by famous artisan Pham Anh Dao in an auction in Hanoi. However, the bidder refused to pay, citing the excuse that he had only intended to pay VND3 billion for the jars, he will lose his VND50 million deposit. Second highest bidder Do Quy Hai, President of Hai Phat Corporation, eventually paid VND6 billion for them.
5 Vietnamese universities named in Asia’s QS list. Vietnam has taken up five spots on the list of 350 top Asian universities recently released by British education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds. The Hanoi university is ranked 139th, up 52 spots from 2015, while the Ho Chi Minh City school climbed 54 spots to the 147th position. Can Tho University takes number 251, while Hue University and Hanoi University of Science and Technology share the 301st position. Quacquarelli Symonds says its annual ranking is based on schools’ scores in nine areas such as academic reputation, faculty to student ratio, citations per paper, staff with PhD and proportion of international students.
