Vietnam's 'rice bowl' cracks in monster heatwave

Southern Vietnam, including business hub Ho Chi Minh City and its "rice bowl" Mekong Delta region, suffered an unusually long heatwave in February, weather officials said Wednesday. In Ca Mau Province, at the tip of the Mekong Delta, farmer Hong Chi Hieu told AFP that "severe drought" had made the earth "very, very dry" and caused problems using the waterways. We have quite a bumper crop this year but the dry canals are badly impacting the transportation of our harvest," he said. A farmer crosses an almost completely dried-up canal in southern Vietnam's Ca Mau Province, which suffered a prolonged heatwave in February. More than 80 canals have dried up in the Tran Van Thoi district of Ca Mau province, news site VNExpress reported.