The Phap Co Village in the northern city of Hai Phong is not normally called by its true name but instead referred to as ‘the village of widows’.

Most adult males from the village in Lai Xuan Commune of Thuy Nguyen District work for the quarry at the foot of the rocky Truot Mountain, and tens of them also died there from rockslides following the dynamite explosions used for stone exploitation.

It is at this location that nine people died and four others were seriously hurt last week after a dynamite explosion, and a rockslide occurred at the site on Truot Mountain.

Each of around 50 households of the ‘widow village’ has at least one man who has been killed on Truot Mount. As the breadwinners of their families, the men’s death has left their wives facing countless difficulties in maintaining their children’s education.

Lying in the middle of the chain of mountains, men of the village have been hired by various enterprises to drill and carry stone as unskilled laborers for decades. The village is permanently covered by thick dust and the loud noises of explosions, working engines in the stone quarries and teams of trucks.

Everyone knows they risk their lives to earn their livings but death comes sooner without food than by rockslide, a local admitted.

Pham Van Phan, chief of the Phap Co Village, said he has yet to make an official list of the exact number of men killed in the quarry, but it must be around 50 families left “having no roof”, a term that refers to houses without husbands.

Most of the widows are still young, some having been recently married, others looking after young children, he said.

“The lane of three widows”

Locals have nicknamed a small alley in the village ‘the lane of three widows,’ because three widows along the lane live within 10 meters of each other.

The husbands of the three widows Do Thi Luong, Tran Thi Min and Bui Thi Minh, all lost their lives at the Truot Mountain quarry.

On visiting the alley last week, only Luong stayed at home to cultivate vegetables in her backyard, while the other two, Min and Minh, went to help families holding funerals after the latest deadly rockslide killed nine men.

She said, “I can’t imagine how I survived the days following the death of my husband six years ago. I felt bewildered. Without a man, it is like my house is missing a roof. But then I overcame it. The sadness burnt out. I know I have to stand up and take care of my children.”

Widow Nguyen Thi Hien is working as a porter at the quarry of the Truot Mountain to raise her three children after her husband died five years ago (Photo: Tuoi Tre)

“I am willing to do everything I was hired to raise children. I still remember when he was alive, I lived in worry whenever he put on his coat to go to work.

“I got used to forgetting the feeling of waiting for salary of a husband,” she admitted.

The other widow, Chu Thi Huong, 39, said, “I was dumbstruck on seeing the body of my husband taken out from under a heap of stones in late 2010.”

But having no income and no other jobs available in the area to earn her living, she had no choice but to apply for work at the quarry as a porter. Many widows in the rural locality, which is 20km from the center of the district, have done that. She said she has suffered chronic headaches since her husband died.

“I don’t dare to stop working a day even though I was struck by an illness, as then my children will have no rice,” she said.

Since May 21, nine more widows have been joined the others in the village.

Fifty widows in a village of 1,000 households makes up a small percentage, but the rate is still many times higher than in other normal villages.

Now, police have blocked the Truot Mount quarry to investigate last week’s accident, despite the quarry owners reporting that the rockslide took place following a lightning strike that hit dynamite installed at the site.

Hai Phong’s Party Secretary Nguyen Van Thanh instructed a comprehensive inspection on enterprises’ compliance with safety regulations at the quarry.

The area at the quarry of the rocky Truot Mountain in the northern city of Hai Phong (Photo: Tuoi Tre)