Changing mindset in responding to natural disasters

As of early October this year, our country has experienced 20 types of natural disasters, causing 238 deaths and missing people, 367 injured people, more than 258,000 houses damaged and 555,000 hectares of rice and crops damaged. Estimated economic damage is up to 33,500 billion VND, a sharp increase compared to the same period in 2024.

In particular, within just 13 days, from September 22 to October 3, 3 consecutive strong storms affected our country, causing a series of natural disasters, "storm on storm, flood on flood" on a large scale in the North. At present, provinces and cities in the Central region such as Hue, Da Nang , Quang Ngai... are also suffering from historic floods.

In fact, although the Government as well as ministries, branches and localities have implemented disaster response and support to overcome consequences quickly and promptly, according to the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment , the response plan to historical floods in some localities in recent times has been passive. Small hydropower reservoirs have not been managed, monitored and supervised closely from the construction, record management, operation stages... leading to incidents.

The deep flooding, separation, and isolation in remote areas and large urban areas seriously affect the work of accessing the scene, commanding and directing response... In particular, the resilience capacity of infrastructure works to natural disasters is still inadequate when especially large floods occur, exceeding history. The capacity to monitor, supervise natural disasters, and rescue is still limited, not meeting practical requirements. Means and equipment are still lacking, not meeting requirements, especially in remote areas...

This situation was also raised by National Assembly deputies in the discussion session on the Report of the Supervisory Delegation and the draft Resolution of the National Assembly on the results of the thematic supervision of "Implementation of policies and laws on environmental protection since the Law on Environmental Protection 2020 took effect" at the 10th Session of the 15th National Assembly. Accordingly, the main reason is that our country's terrain has many steep hills and mountains, weak geology, while the weather is increasingly extreme, with prolonged heavy rains. Many residential areas are spontaneously formed on hillsides and along streams; the situation of deforestation in the headwaters and soil erosion. Another problem is that the planning and management of residential land is not effective, some localities still let people live in high-risk areas. The capacity to forecast natural disasters is still limited, the monitoring system is not synchronized, and warnings to people are still late...

To further improve the effectiveness of natural disaster prevention, some opinions believe that the most important thing now is not only to support but also to control and prevent by re-evaluating environmental impacts, reviewing planning and managing infrastructure and population development in accordance with natural laws. In addition, natural disasters must be viewed not only as a climate event but also as a cumulative consequence of uncontrolled exploitation, going against natural laws. This is the time to clearly establish the direction of disaster-resistant infrastructure in national planning and medium-term public investment plans.

In addition, it is necessary to build a mechanism for preventing and responding to natural disasters, promptly complete the national risk map, install modern systems, and provide early warning at key points. Each commune and village must have a "community safety team" that is trained, equipped, and connected to higher-level authorities so that people are not passive and surprised when natural disasters occur.

The consequences of climate change are already present, directly affecting sustainable development, requiring more drastic and substantial actions. Therefore, as Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha said at the recent working session with the leaders of Da Nang city, the immediate priority is to ensure absolute safety for people's lives... In the long term, it is necessary to change the response mindset towards being proactive and adaptive in the context of increasingly extreme climate and weather. The infrastructure system must be invested strongly enough to withstand natural disasters, while aiming at the goal that even if there are floods, people's lives will still go on normally, without being disrupted.

Source: https://daibieunhandan.vn/thay-doi-tu-duy-ung-pho-voi-thien-tai-10393747.html