On the afternoon of July 24, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Head of the National Steering Committee for Civil Defense, chaired the first meeting of the Steering Committee on natural disaster prevention and control and search and rescue in 2025.
The meeting was connected online from the Government headquarters to 34 provinces and centrally run cities, 3,321 communes, wards and special zones nationwide.
Attending the meeting were comrade Tran Hong Ha, member of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Prime Minister, Permanent Deputy Head of the Steering Committee; General Phan Van Giang, member of the Politburo, Minister of National Defense, Deputy Head of the Steering Committee; comrades leading ministries, branches, members of the Steering Committee; leaders of localities.
At the meeting, Minister and Head of the Government Office Tran Van Son announced the Prime Minister's Decision on reorganizing 3 Steering Committees (including the National Civil Defense Steering Committee; the National Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control; the National Committee for Incident Response, Natural Disasters and Search and Rescue) into the National Civil Defense Steering Committee.
In his opening speech, on behalf of General Secretary To Lam, other Party and State leaders, and with his personal feelings, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh sent his deepest condolences to the relatives and families of victims of natural disasters, especially the relatives and families of the victims who died or went missing in the sinking of the ship Blue Bay 58 (Ha Long, Quang Ninh) and in storm No. 3 in recent days.
The Prime Minister also shared the pain, loss and huge property damage suffered by people in mountainous communes in Nghe An province due to the massive floods caused by storm No. 3 and the storm's aftermath.
The Prime Minister said that on the morning of July 24, Minister of National Defense Phan Van Giang directed the use of helicopters to supply food, provisions and essential items to people in isolated areas in Nghe An. Previously, the Prime Minister had sent Deputy Prime Ministers to key areas to work, inspect the situation and directly direct the response work.
The Prime Minister reminded that we must absolutely not be subjective or negligent in the face of natural disasters, especially not saying that "the area is divided so the leaders cannot come up". "Only when we are divided do we need leadership, we need the main force to grasp the situation by all means, to reach the divided area by all means, to supply food, foodstuffs, and drinking water to the people by all means", the Prime Minister emphasized.
According to regulations, civil defense includes: Measures to prevent, combat and overcome the consequences of war; prevent, combat and overcome the consequences of incidents, disasters, natural disasters, epidemics, etc. The Prime Minister stated that the first meeting of the Steering Committee was to discuss one of the very important contents of the Steering Committee, which is to direct the implementation of natural disaster prevention and combat work.
Disaster prevention and control is a special defense content because our country has a long terrain and regularly faces many types of natural disasters (storms, floods, flash floods, landslides, earthquakes, droughts, saltwater intrusion, etc.), "blocking storms in the morning and preventing fire in the afternoon".
According to the Prime Minister, the impact of climate change makes weather and natural disasters increasingly unusual, extreme, and unpredictable. In 2024, Typhoon Yagi was the strongest storm in the past 70 years; last June, the Central region experienced heavy rain and flooding in the middle of the dry season; on the night of July 22, 2025, the flood from the upper reaches of the Ca River to Ban Ve Hydropower Reservoir corresponded to a frequency of once every many years; the tourist boat capsized in Ha Long, Quang Ninh on the afternoon of July 19 when a sudden storm occurred with hail and strong whirlwinds.
Regarding storm No. 3 in 2025 (Wipha), all levels, sectors and localities have been very proactive in implementing natural disaster prevention and control, forecasting, warning and propaganda so that people can proactively prevent, respond to storms and minimize damage, but the impact before the storm and the circulation after the storm still caused great damage.
The Prime Minister asked delegates to focus on exchanging, discussing and evaluating the work of preventing, combating and overcoming the consequences of natural disasters in the past time, clarifying the good and bad aspects from the leadership, direction to the response work of sectors, localities and people; the shortcomings, limitations, difficulties, obstacles, drawing lessons; determining tasks in the last months of the year and the coming period.
Along with that, discuss, assign, and define the tasks of advising and directing natural disaster prevention and control in the future; assign responsibilities for advising and directing natural disaster prevention and control. The Prime Minister proposed assigning and delegating tasks to ensure "6 clarity": Clear people, clear work, clear time, clear responsibility, clear authority, and clear results at both the central and local levels.
The Prime Minister also proposed discussing and evaluating the work of natural disaster prevention and search and rescue when implementing the two-level local government model, what are the advantages, difficulties and obstacles, and sharing good experiences and lessons.
Source: https://baolangson.vn/thu-tuong-phai-bang-moi-cach-tiep-can-nhung-noi-bi-chia-cat-do-bao-lu-thien-tai-5054128.html
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