Exactly ten years ago, on April 6, 2016, residents in Hà Tĩnh began observing a mass fish die-off along their coastline. The devastation first appeared near the Vũng Áng industrial zone in Kỳ Anh before rapidly spreading southward to the provinces of Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị, and Thừa Thiên–Huế.
This event marked the beginning of the largest environmental disaster in Việt Nam’s history. Lasting until September 2016, the crisis severely crippled the livelihoods of fishermen and salt farmers, decimated the tourism sector, and damaged the broader economies of the affected provinces.
The disaster sparked a series of nationwide protests starting in late April, with major demonstrations occurring in Hà Nội and Hồ Chí Minh City in May 2016. Police ultimately suppressed these peaceful demonstrations by beating and imprisoning many of the participants.
On June 30, 2016, the government held a press conference to officially accuse the Formosa Hà Tĩnh Steel Corporation of illegally discharging toxic waste into the sea, naming it as the sole cause of the disaster. That same day, a company representative issued a public apology and pledged $500 million in compensation.
By September of that year, Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc signed a decision to distribute these funds to affected residents, though very little public information has ever been released about how the compensation was actually allocated.
Despite the promised payouts, protests continued across the affected regions in the following months, and police violently cracked down on them. Activist Hoàng Đức Bình was among the most prominent targets. Detained after he helped affected fishermen file lawsuits and joined protests demanding justice, he was sentenced in February 2018 to 14 years in prison for his peaceful activism.
Trịnh Hữu Long wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on April 6, 2026. The Vietnamese Magazine has the copyrights for the English translation.
