Giant airborne coffee cup display injures two at Vietnam festival

Buon Ma Thuot, Vietnam - Two teenage girls were severely injured at a coffee festival in the central Vietnamese town of Buon Ma Thuot when a helicopter carrying a giant coffee cup hit a tree, witnesses said Thursday.

The helicopter was carrying a 6-ton stainless steel coffee cup suspended on ropes Wednesday, bearing the logo of the Vinacafe Bienhoa company. Buon Mat Thuot Coffee Festival organizers claimed the 2.3-metre-wide coffee cup was the largest in the world.

"The helicopter was flying too low," said Nguyen Thi Dung, a witness at the scene.

The helicopter's tail rotor clipped a large branch off a tree, which fell on the heads of two 16-year-old students.

One girl's spine was injured, while the second suffered a fractured skull and required an operation to remove a life-threatening blood clot from her brain, according to the doctor at Dak Lak Hospital who performed the operation. Both are now in stable condition.

Organizers had billed the airborne coffee cup display as one of the festival's highlights. Witnesses, however, said the display was not as impressive as advertised, as the cup was much smaller than the helicopter carrying it.

Nguyen Thanh Tung, Vinacafe Bienhoa's marketing director, said the company had taken out an insurance policy of over 1 million dollars on the cup display.

The annual Buon Ma Thuot Coffee Festival is the largest in Vietnam, attracting more than 150 Vietnamese and foreign coffee businesses.

Vietnam, the world's second largest coffee exporter after Brazil, expects its exports this year to total about 1 million tons. (dpa)

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