Strengthen coordination in preparation, handling and recovery

*Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang speaks at the Conference*

Don't be surprised by passive responses to incidents and natural disasters.

In the first months of 2023, the weather and climate situation has been complicated and extreme, especially heat waves, floods, landslides in the mountainous areas of the North, Central and Central Highlands. From January 1, 2023 to August 5, 2023, nationwide there were: 1,753 incidents and natural disasters (1 tropical depression, 2 storms, 47 heavy rains, floods, subsidence, landslides, rockslides; 208 thunderstorms and hailstorms; 27 strong winds, big waves at sea; 151 earthquakes and 321 riverbank landslides) killing 267 people; 78 people missing; 291 people injured; 302 vehicles sunk, burned, damaged; 628 factories and 1,176 hectares of forest burned; 9,075 houses collapsed, roofs blown off; 45,536 hectares of rice and crops damaged...

The National Committee for Incident, Disaster Response and Search and Rescue (Committee) has directed the issuance of 52 dispatches on the response and handling of unusual incidents and disasters. The Civil Defense - Disaster Prevention and Search and Rescue Commands of ministries, branches and localities strictly maintain a 24/24-hour on-call regime, proactively grasp the situation, promptly and effectively handle incidents, disasters and search and rescue, and avoid being passive and surprised by any situation that occurs.

Lieutenant General Nguyen Trong Binh, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army, Permanent Vice Chairman of the National Committee for Incident Response and Search and Rescue, spoke at the conference.

Nationwide, 53,490 people and 3,633 vehicles of all kinds were mobilized to respond to and overcome 1,753 incidents, rescuing 1,595 people and 178 vehicles, guiding and evacuating 747 households with 3,011 people to safety, and informing and guiding 103,898 vehicles and 754,909 people about storm and tropical depression information to promptly avoid and escape from dangerous areas.

To proactively respond to and effectively overcome incidents, natural disasters and search and rescue in the last months of the year, the Committee focuses on directing ministries, branches and localities to strictly maintain 24/7 on-duty forces, grasp the situation, proactively respond, overcome and handle incidents, natural disasters and search and rescue promptly and effectively, not to be passively surprised; promote information and communication work, raise public awareness of incident response, natural disasters and search and rescue.

*Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Cong Thanh speaks at the conference*

Ministries, sectors and localities continue to review and supplement the legal system on incident and disaster response and search and rescue, focusing on implementing the Law on Civil Defense; implementing the Project on developing and improving incident and disaster response and search and rescue capacity by 2030, with a vision to 2045 at the ministerial, sectoral and local levels.

At the same time, ministries, branches and localities continue to improve organizations, Steering Committees and Commissions according to the provisions of the Law on Civil Defense; organize training, drills and exercises on Incident Response, Natural Disasters and Search and Rescue, to improve the capacity of incident response, natural disasters and search and rescue for command agencies and forces...

Check high-risk landslide areas to warn of evacuation

Reporting on the natural disaster situation in the first 7 months of 2023, Mr. Mai Van Khiem - Director of the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, General Department of Hydrometeorology, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said: Storms appeared later and less than the average of many years (TBNN), until the second half of July 2023, the first storm appeared in the East Sea. Heat waves appeared more frequently and more intensely, from January to July 2023, the whole country experienced 16 widespread heat waves (more than the average), with the highest absolute temperature commonly ranging from 35-38 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, there was a lot of rain in the Central Highlands and the South, little rain in the North.

Notably, in the past time, there have been a number of landslides in the Central Highlands and the North. Through the assessment of rainfall data, it can be seen that in the landslide in Ward 10, Da Lat City, the accumulated rainfall 12 hours before the landslide was about 50mm; in the landslide at Bao Loc Pass, the rainfall 12 hours before reached 170mm; in the landslide on National Highway 6 Mai Chau, Hoa Binh on August 4, the rainfall 12 hours before was less than 10mm. The accumulated rainfall before the landslide was relatively different between regions, in some places, even though the rainfall was insignificant, landslides still occurred.

*Mr. Mai Van Khiem - Director of the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting reported at the conference.*

Mr. Mai Van Khiem said: Since 2022, Vietnam has received the Southeast Asia Flash Flood Warning Support System. This is the first flash flood warning support system that uses ultra-short-term forecast data and integrates a large amount of different data sources.

Regarding warnings and forecasts of current rainfall, the General Department of Hydrometeorology has organized the implementation with details down to each 1 x 1 km square with automatic observation equipment and timely warnings. The General Department of Hydrometeorology has implemented detailed warnings to communes or points for provinces that have investigated and identified flash flood and landslide hotspots.

Currently, local disaster prevention and search and rescue agencies have documents and maps of high-risk landslide locations in the locality. Mr. Mai Van Khiem said that the solution to limit damage is for local youth disaster prevention and control forces to regularly conduct inspections of locations identified as high-risk for landslides before heavy rains so that they can warn people to evacuate if necessary.

Diversify types of disaster warning information

According to some opinions at the meeting, although propaganda work has received attention, the awareness of some local and grassroots authorities and people is still subjective; the damage caused by incidents and natural disasters is still large, especially the loss of people's lives when incidents, floods, flash floods, landslides, etc. occur. Some delegates said that equipment and response capacity for rescue and relief have not yet met the actual requirements when natural disasters occur, so additional investment is needed; at the same time, diversifying the types of disaster warning information to people and local authorities.

Regarding the landslide that occurred at Bao Loc Pass, Lam Dong Province, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Cong Thanh said that rain is only one of the factors that trigger landslides, however, early detection and warning will help reduce damage caused by natural disasters.

According to the Deputy Minister, the rain occurred over a large area of tens of square kilometers, but landslides only occurred locally in high-risk areas, so monitoring and detection by people as well as local forces is extremely important. People as well as local forces have experience in detecting unusual signs of natural disasters that can avoid damage, especially human damage. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will continue to direct specialized agencies to actively propagate and disseminate knowledge to raise awareness among people and establishments through mass media.

Deputy Minister Le Cong Thanh hopes that in the coming time, when implementing the Law on Civil Defense, we will have a local civil defense force. This force will be organized and trained more professionally so that it can work with the people and local agencies to monitor and supervise signs of natural disasters, including landslides, to be able to give early warnings, avoiding damage to people and property.

The Deputy Minister said that with the appearance of the El Nino phenomenon, the salinity intrusion in the Mekong Delta may be relatively severe at the end of this year and early next year. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has directed the General Department of Hydrometeorology to carry out forecasting and early warning work to update information in a timely manner and minimize damage to the people.

At the meeting, Lieutenant General Nguyen Trong Binh, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army and Permanent Vice Chairman of the National Committee for Incident Response and Search and Rescue, said that forecast information is quite complete but accurate forecasting is very difficult, so the propaganda work to mobilize people to follow the plans is also difficult. In the long term, it is necessary to focus on moving people from high-risk areas to safety, conduct a general review of households living in high-risk areas and resolutely evacuate to safety.

Concluding the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang, Chairman of the National Committee for Incident, Disaster Response and Search and Rescue, agreed with the key tasks of the Committee in the final months of the year.

Emphasizing the importance of early warning information, the Deputy Prime Minister suggested that the most important thing is forecasting, which must be timely and accurate. In the context of natural disasters from now until the end of the year being unpredictable, the Deputy Prime Minister said that disaster response must be more vigilant, ministries and localities must review their tasks to supplement them in accordance with actual requirements in disaster response. In particular, coordination between forces here is still the weakest link, so it is necessary to coordinate immediately in preparing and participating in incident handling to reduce the impacts of natural disasters and even in overcoming them.

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