Inside Hanoi’s Sliced-Up Houses: The Grim Reality of Urban Demolition

The Urban Dissection

Multiple key infrastructure and transit projects are tearing through Hanoi simultaneously, aggressively transforming the face of the city. Along the Tran Hung Dao bridge project, a wave of land clearances has left rows of houses brutally sliced open, exposing hollow, gaping rooms directly to the public street.

On Ring Road 1, along the Hoang Cau – Voi Phuc section, demolition crews savagely cut down a five-story residence. The building once spanned nearly 300 square meters. The demolition reduced the structure to a precarious, makeshift shell. Yet, the family must go on living inside. Official agencies continue to freeze all repair and renovation permits, trapping the residents in limbo.

Similarly, following land clearance for the expansion of Linh Nam Road, a nearly 200-square-meter home belonging to Mr. Nguyen Trong Hung in Vinh Hung ward was decimated, leaving only a tiny fraction behind. Hung stays in the ruined house alone; his elderly parents have already fled to another location for safer living conditions and to escape the suffocating clouds of construction dust.

Trapped in the middle of an active construction zone, Hung admits he must keep his doors tightly sealed all day long to fight back the relentless onslaught of dust and noise. He only dares to open them in the dead of early morning or during brief lulls when the heavy machinery falls silent.

Choking on Dust and Heavy Machinery

The Ring Road 2.5 project cuts directly through Yen Hoa ward. Here, 70-year-old Mr. Nguyen Quang watched authorities seize nearly 30 square meters of his property. The seizure left behind a fractured footprint of just 51 square meters.

Desperate to stabilize their upended lives, he and his wife poured hundreds of millions of VND into immediate renovations. However, the rebuilding process quickly devolved into an agonizing nightmare. Repairs have dragged on indefinitely due to a severe labor shortage. Hanoi’s simultaneous explosion of mega-projects spreads construction workers incredibly thin.

The physical dissection of the house forced brutal structural compromises. Workers had to demolish the old staircase entirely. They did this just to stretch what little remained of the floor plan. The land seizure cost the house a massive section of its front facade, forcing this architectural sacrifice.

This structural trauma quickly fractured the family dynamic as well. Previously, 10 family members coexisted closely under this single roof. Following the dissection of their home, the hazardous, exposed space drove away Mr. Quang’s children and grandchildren. They fled to other dwellings. This exodus left only the elderly couple behind. They now live isolated in the ruins to guard their remaining property during the grueling renovation.

Meanwhile, the massive scope of the Tran Hung Dao bridge development swallowed Mr. Nguyen Anh Tu’s residence. Land clearance left his home mutilated, just like dozens of others nearby. The project severed over 10 square meters at the back of the house. This lost space once housed the family kitchen and bathroom. The family had to hand it over to the project.

Theoretically, 51 square meters remain. However, the actual usable space of Tu’s house shrivels to just over 30 square meters. The demolition sliced the structure open, leaving multiple rooms completely exposed.

Tu’s parents are frail octogenarians over 90 years old. They previously lived entirely on the ground floor. Now, the loss of both a kitchen and a toilet plagues their daily survival with profound inconvenience.

Racing the Clock Against Structural Collapse

Scarcely 30 meters away stands another house. Crews demolished over half of its structure to make way for the project. The destruction left behind a jagged 50 square meters.

Ms. Nguyen Thị Thuy lives inside a hollow room. The demolition sliced this area into exposed compartments. She has stayed behind to watch over the property. Meanwhile, her family desperately scrambles to rebuild.

The house was once spacious but hidden deep within a narrow alleyway. Now, the brutal clearance has chopped off half the structure. This violently warps both its architectural integrity and their entire living space.

To ascend to the second floor, where the bedrooms miraculously remain intact, Thuy must navigate a broken, perilous staircase caught in a state of partial demolition, with exposed rebar jutting out like rusted bones.

“My family is racing at full speed to repair the house to ensure structural safety and restore some decency to its appearance. We deeply pray the repairs finish quickly so our lives can finally return to normal,” Thuy shares.

The relentless advance of the Ring Road 2.5 project almost entirely consumed another nearby house. The development devoured the home from a modest 33 square meters down to a claustrophobic, suffocating footprint of less than 7 square meters.

The remnants of this dwelling sit on a raw plot of nearly 20 square meters. This tiny space serves as the cramped refuge for three separate brothers’ families. The extreme confinement has completely upended their lives. Cooking, eating, and resting are forced into this minuscule remaining space or out onto the front yard, which remains a chaotic wasteland of shattered concrete and debris. All across the construction zones, heavy machinery roars day and night, relentlessly tearing down the remaining structures trapped within the project’s unforgiving path.

Across the construction sites, heavy machinery rumbles day and night, tearing down structures within the land clearance zones to make way for the projects.

Image source: The Bang/VnExpress