NGHE AN — Lam River was raging, but without a second thought Nguyen Van Binh and other divers flexed their legs and jumped into the intense current in search of a submerged coach.
Thousands of people turned their eyes towards the river. Ten minutes passed in silence until one diver suddenly rose from the water, signalling "It's here. The coach is down here!"
The coach carrying 37 passengers was swept away on October 18 from a section of National Highway 1A in central Ha Tinh Province; 17 of the passengers were saved.
Rescue teams used a crane to lift the coach from the river with the bodies of 10 passengers inside. Another five bodies were found later along sections of Lam River in Nghi Xuan District. The rest are still missing.
The flood waters of the Lam River were matched only by the speed of the rescuers who voluntarily leapt into action when the floods hit the central province earlier this month.
The coach was found submerged beneath 15 metres of water. It took eight hours of all-out effort for rescuers, six divers in particular, to lift the vehicle to shore.
The divers were all from the Nguyen family line of central Nghe An Province's Hung Nguyen District on the other side of Lam River.
"The water was flowing so strongly it nearly pulled the rope out of my hands," said Nguyen Van Hoan, the oldest and most experienced diver.
"I have been a diver for more than 30 years but I never felt such strength from the water. Whenever it floods, Lam River becomes very swift and devastating.
At times, it even scares professional divers," said Hoan, aged 60.
"At that moment, my only wish was to bring the corpses to shore as soon as possible. My heart and my soul urged me to do so."
Hoan's son, Nguyen Van Viet, the youngest rescuer, shared his feelings at seeing the tears of the victims' family members run down their faces at the moment the coach was lifted to the river's surface.
"I couldn't hold back my tears when I emerged from the water, when I saw the exhausted eyes that had wept and moaned for days."
Kept busy
Viet has worked with his father for seven years. He and the team have salvaged many submerged boats and vessels but he has never felt like this before.
"I have never been so happy."
"The water was so cold and fast. But I felt warm in my heart. I dived down to hook the cable into the wheels but a couple of times I wanted to stop to look inside the coach for survivors," said the 22-year-old.
Among the many people who came to congratulate the rescuers for having done an extraordinary job, some doubted they did it for money.
"This is not the first time we have salvaged corpses [from the river bed]. We have done this many times but we have always refused to set a price," said Nguyen Van Thanh.
"We are always willing to do charity work for life, no matter how hard and risky," he said as he took a breath. "Everyone was exhausted after more than one day deep in the cold water with an empty tummy."
Thanh said the provincial authorities rewarded each rescuer with VND1 million (US$ 50) for their bravery.
"Frankly speaking, if we had done [the rescue] for money, billions of dong would not have been enough because the task was extremely risky."
Thanh has lost count of the times he has voluntarily rescued drowned and salvaged corpses since he began following in his parents' footsteps as a fisherman along Lam River at the age of 16.
Team leader Binh chipped in: "Social prejudices and the attitudes of neighbours who keep their distance from us because we ‘work' with the dead sometimes wring our hearts with pain."
"Luckily enough, we receive great support from the families because they all understand that we're doing good deeds."
Loved ones waiting
When the work was done, the rescuers returned home to their loved ones who had not rested for days.
"He was ‘on duty' for several days, so our two children and I did not dare to leave the attic [a safe shelter during the flood]," said Tran Thi Mai, Binh's wife.
"When he heard about the coach and the 20 missing passengers, Binh called his ‘team' and left our family even though our house was flooded almost to the top of the wardrobe."
Defying Mai's advice, Binh insisted "I work and live on the river. I swim and dive well. I I could not live without doing something for those lying underneath Lam River."
Like the whole team, 33-year-old Nguyen Van Bang was absent from his home for four days. His wife, Tran Thi Hoa, could not sleep the entire time he was gone.
"If something happened [to him] amidst such a fierce current, we would be alone in the world and without any support to lean on," said Hoa, adding that she occasionally took a boat to the front of the village to look towards Lam River.
"Every time I thought about that I held my children tightly and cried. Now that he is back, I can set my mind at ease."
And it's true. Bang returned and shared his happiness.
"The most happy moment was when we successfully hooked the cable into the wheels. We knew the coach rescue would certainly be successful," said Bang. — VNS
