The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt

This is the story of a city that paid its people to kill rats and, by most accounts, ended up with more rats than before. It began with pride. Governor-General Paul Doumer decided that Hanoi should become a 'Little Paris of the East.' He was a former finance minister, and he wanted the city to be a showcase of civility. One of his most prized projects was one nobody could see. Between 1897 and 1901 workers laid about 14 kilometres of modern sewer pipe under the wealthy district where colonial administrators lived. Their villas got flush toilets. The administration boasted of the sewers as a symbol of European modernity. But the tunnels were dark, cool and free of predators. Then, in early 1902, the first rats came up through the drains.