Hanoi, Vietnam – In Vietnam's capital's Thanh Xuan district, a maze of alleyways bustling with the energy of residential neighborhoods and a nearby university, memories of last year's deadly apartment fire still linger.
Late at night on September 12, 2023, a fire broke out in an apartment building on Quong Ha Street in Quong Dinh District, killing 56 people, including four children.
Police determined that the fire started from a short circuit in the electrical wiring of a scooter parked on the ground floor and quickly spread to the upper floors of the building. The building's owner added on to build a small condominium apartment building that could accommodate three times as many tenants.
For years, micro-apartments known as “chung cu mini” have sprung up across Vietnam's big cities, cramming low-income families and university students into substandard, fire-prone housing.
“These apartments are like mushrooms, they are everywhere,” Lan Vo, a former resident of a small apartment in Tan Xuan, told Al Jazeera, asking to be referred to by a pseudonym to avoid harassment.
Le Hoang Chau, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Real Estate Association, said in an interview with state media last year that the boom in micro-apartments since the 2010s was due to a lack of low-income housing.
The September disaster and other fires in small apartment complexes left Vietnamese authorities facing the dangers of lax building and fire regulations and inadequate social housing infrastructure.
But even as the country mourns those who died and government inspections are carried out across the country, local governments are trying to make the building available to low-income city dwellers at a rare and affordable price. , is at an impasse in terms of outlawing construction.
Micro-apartment blocks are usually designed in the style of elongated tubes. Built on small lots in narrow alleys in densely populated areas, residences are often located in close proximity to universities and are home to students and low-income families.
The Ho Chi Minh City Construction Department estimates that as of mid-2022, Ho Chi Minh City will have more than 60,000 micro-apartment buildings, consisting of approximately 600,000 apartment units.
Chau, president of the real estate association, said in an interview with state media that the apartments are home to about 1.8 million people in Ho Chi Minh City alone, or about 40% of the workforce.
According to a report from the city police department, about 42,200 micro-apartments are currently on the rental market.
There is no official data on Hanoi, but state power company Vietnam Electricity says at least 2,000 microapartments are connected to the city's power grid.
During a recent visit to Quong Dinh District, the site of the September fire, Al Jazeera observed dozens of apartments crammed into narrow alleys.
Apartment complexes can also be found in areas near the university, such as Hoang Mai, Cau Giay, Bac Tu Liem, and Nam Tu Liem.
“[Tenants] Mostly young workers and many students live together,” said Vo, a former micro-apartment resident.
“Due to high rents, students often live together in groups of three to five people to share rent and utilities.”
The micro-apartment retail price is just VND 600 million ($24,615), making this accommodation the cheapest real estate available in most cities in Vietnam.
Still, tenants, especially university students, still struggle to make rent in Vietnam, where the minimum wage barely reaches $200 a month.
Although Ms. Vo was relatively happy with her housing, she witnessed others enduring conditions much worse than her.
“The building I lived in had about eight to 10 rooms, and the building next door had up to 30 rooms,” Vo said.
“Greedy landlords try to cram in as many people as possible to get more rent. If you think about it, it's like a can of sardines,” she added.
For residents, the desire to cram as many tenants into buildings as possible threatens not only comfort, but also safety.
Narrow, congested alleys on which buildings are often located limit access for fire trucks. Some apartments do not have emergency exits or other fire protection facilities.
In the case of the September fire on Cuong Ha Street, fire engines and first responders reportedly had difficulty reaching the apartment due to the narrow alleyways in the borough.
Vaux said the ward's tenants occasionally gather for “fire drills,” which mainly consist of fire safety tips such as not leaving stoves on, and that the building has emergency evacuation ladders. It is said that because there was no such thing, the shadow was overshadowed.
Tuy Hai, a Hanoi University student who lives in a micro-apartment, said monthly fire drills are not held in her district of Tan Xuan.
“Instead, they [the landlord] I just left a fire extinguisher at the door,” she told Al Jazeera. “They didn't even teach me how to use it.”
Metal bars called “tiger cages” installed around windows and balconies to prevent robberies and falls are also attracting attention as a safety issue.
According to state media reports, five large and small fires broke out in Hanoi in September alone.
Hanoi Police Deputy Chief Col. Duong Duc Hai told local media that 96 percent of these fires were caused by electrical short circuits.
Tenant scooters are typically stored on the lowest floors of apartment buildings, which can pose potential safety issues such as blocked exits and electrical outages.
Witnesses to a fire in Thanh Xuan in September told Al Jazeera that the building's owner, Nghiem Quang Minh, had hired an elderly security guard to manage the scooters of the tenants on the bottom floor. However, he said he was often overwhelmed by the number of vehicles.
Witnesses said security guards were paid based on the number of scooters they could park and were encouraged to park as many scooters as possible.
It was also found that the property owner had constructed extra floors and rooms in violation of contractual agreements and regulations.
Minh, who is currently facing charges of violating fire regulations, has built at least eight micro-apartment buildings in several districts of Hanoi, law enforcement officials said.
State media said none of the apartments met fire safety standards and all were found to have had unauthorized additions.
For many years, Vietnamese law did not define microapartments or include them in a specific legal framework. The situation changed in November when parliament amended the law giving them legal status.
When the amendments come into effect on January 1, 2025, real estate developers will still be allowed to build micro-apartments in residential areas where they hold land use rights.
The proposed amendments set out conditions for “private” developers to construct and own buildings.
Due to these regulations, individual investors will have higher hurdles to develop micro-apartments than existing real estate businesses, such as requiring a minimum amount of investment capital.
Before the law change, lawmakers were debating whether tighter regulations on microapartments were unenforceable or should be legal.
Parliament member Trinh Xuan An told local media that the government “should not support the construction of mini-apartments, but instead support the development of public housing projects for low-income people.” .
Other MPs stressed that the new regulations will allow renters to safely access popular accommodation.
A recurring theme in the discussion is affordability.
Rapid population growth in Hanoi has made the city one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world.
For many budget-conscious renters, the lack of housing options in the suburbs makes microapartments a natural choice.
Despite the dangers, this cramped unit has proven popular with students and low-income blue-collar workers.
Former tenant Vo said apartments were still a better option than public housing for people like her, and stricter regulations were a better option than a ban.
“Tenants should be able to submit complaints directly about serious issues, especially when it concerns their safety, and not wait decades for government to respond,” she says.
