Responding to floods: Efforts to maintain the "information blood vessels"

Mobile broadcasting stations and fiber optic lines have been continuously affected by floods and landslides. Over the past few days, the “communication soldiers” of the network operators have been stationed in each area, making efforts to restore and ensure smooth communication.

Mr. Le Ngoc Trang (center) and the mobile rescue team of Viettel Da Nang are urgently fixing a broken optical cable in the Tra My area. Photo: VT

For the past five days, Mr. Le Ngoc Trang and his colleagues from Viettel's mobile team have been stationed in the Tra My area to rescue broadcasting stations (BTS stations) and fix fiber optic cables damaged by floods and landslides.

“We determined to stay strong in each area, each BTS station. The top priority is to move to every location to supply fuel to the generator, determined not to let any station “die”, to keep the mobile signal uninterrupted. There were areas where we had to walk dozens of kilometers, wade through mud and countless landslides to promptly reach the broken cable location, reconnect and fix the line as soon as possible”, Trang shared.

According to the Viettel Da Nang Civil Defense Command located in Tam Ky area, in recent days, in mountainous areas such as Tra Leng, Tra Giap... staff had to carry equipment, walk from the commune center to the station and the locations of broken and severed optical cables, in some places nearly 20km, through dozens of landslides. In flooded areas, staff rented boats and canoes to bring fuel to operate, ensuring continuous operation for the station.

Technical staff in Mr. Le Ngoc Trang's group in front of a landslide on Highway 40B. Photo: VT

Before this flood, Viettel strictly implemented the "4 on-site" motto. Ensuring fuel for generators at stations (at stations with power outages) for at least 3-4 days. At the same time, proactively sending teams to reinforce and stay close to the area to respond. With utmost efforts, Viettel has so far ensured mobile signal coverage in 100% of communes and wards in the area.

Regarding the signal loss incident in Avuong commune, VNPT representatives promptly informed about the situation as well as the recovery work. Accordingly, the Vinaphone BTS station in Avuong commune lost contact at 3:00 a.m. on October 30 due to running out of fuel to run the generator. By 6:00 a.m. the same day, the unit had supplied additional fuel but was stuck in traffic at the Adinh landslide site and could not reach it.

VNPT staff transport fuel on flooded roads to supply mobile broadcasting stations. Photo: VNPT

VNPT contacted the leaders of Avuong commune to request to send support people from the center to the Adinh landslide site to receive fuel to restore the signal, serving the direction and management of the government and people. However, the commune leaders said that from the commune to Adinh is more than 20km, with more than 20 landslides, making it very difficult to access.

Avuong commune leaders said that overcoming landslides is beyond the locality’s capacity and hope that city leaders will soon direct support to clear the routes. These include Ho Chi Minh Highway from Dong Giang to Avuong and Highway 606 from Avuong to Tay Giang and Hung Son communes. These routes have many landslides with large volumes of rock and soil.

According to VNPT Da Nang, prolonged floods in the city, especially in areas of the former Quang Nam province, have isolated many VNPT telecommunication stations. Widespread power outages have affected telecommunication services. To ensure communication, VNPT has coordinated with other network operators to open Roaming in some areas of Da Nang. In the midst of the flood, no matter how far the road is or the station is surrounded by water waves, VNPT technical staff still find a way to get there, so that the BTS station never "stops functioning", maintaining the flow of information.

Source: https://baodanang.vn/ung-pho-mua-lu-no-luc-giu-mach-mau-thong-tin-3308777.html