Proactive and determined in natural disaster prevention and search and rescue in Nghe An

Nghe An Newspaper reporter interviewed Mr. Nguyen Truong Thanh, head of the Irrigation Sub-Department, about proactively improving forecasting, response and recovery capacity to minimize the negative impacts of natural disasters on socio-economic development in Nghe An province.
PV: Sir! What difficulties does Nghe An have in natural disaster prevention and search and rescue?
Mr. Nguyen Truong Thanh:In line with the general trend, in Nghe An province, natural disasters are becoming more and more complicated. In 2021, from the beginning of the year, extreme weather phenomena such as tornadoes, lightning, and cold spells have appeared; all kinds oftypes of natural disastersoccur as cold air, heat, tornadoes, lightning, hail and widespread heavy rain.

Natural disasters have had a major impact on people's lives and the socio-economy; greatly affecting people, agricultural and forestry production, and severely damaging infrastructure. In 2021, the estimated economic loss was nearly 699 billion VND. Accidents at sea have also killed 23 people and left 7 missing.

Mr. Nguyen Truong Thanh

Many residential areas of Thanh Chuong district were submerged in floodwaters during the September 2020 floods. Photo: Nghe An Newspaper

PV: So over the past years, what solutions has Nghe An had to minimize the adverse impacts of natural disasters, sir?

Storms, floods, and natural disasters often cause severe drought in Nghe An. Photo: Phu Huong

Right from the beginning of the year, before the rainy season, we have proactively developed response plans to respond to natural disaster risks at all levels. Currently, the scenarios and plans for natural disaster prevention of localities and units are being approved by competent authorities. Particularly for weak projects, we are currently requesting the Provincial People's Committee to allocate funds for repair, renovation and upgrading to be proactive indisaster prevention, to prevent unfortunate incidents.

The working group of the National Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control and Search and Rescue inspected the prevention plan at Ba Khe dam, Nam Dan before the 2021 storm season. Photo: Phu Huong

In responding to natural disaster risks at all levels, localities and units have proactively developed specific plans. The Provincial People's Committee has also issued Decisions on proactively responding to natural disasters in the province, developing dike protection plans, natural disaster prevention plans at large reservoirs, etc. At the same time, it has developed recovery scenarios after natural disasters cause consequences for production and people's lives.

Building sea dykes in Hoang Mai to improve disaster prevention capacity. Photo: Phu Huong

In particular, identify awareness and skills enhancementresponseThe awareness of all levels of government, people and community is extremely important in natural disaster prevention and search and rescue. In recent years, Nghe An has focused on propaganda for officials at all levels of government and people, helping to improve people's knowledge and response skills when natural disasters and catastrophes occur, in order to minimize human and property damage after natural disasters.

Provincial leaders direct the work of draining floodwaters at Dien Thanh wharf before the storm. Photo: Phu Huong

Along with that, continue to invest in infrastructure, consolidate, upgrade, repair and overcome incidents of dikes, dams, and disaster prevention and control works; promote the application of science and technology in disaster prevention.

PV: In the coming time, how do you predict natural disasters will continue to have unpredictable developments, sir?
Mr. Nguyen Truong Thanh:According to the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, this year our country is likely to experiencestrong storms against the lawwith about 12-14 storms and tropical depressions active in the East Sea. Rainfall tends to increase nationwide, with a high possibility of extreme rainfall. Natural disasters continue to develop in a very complex and unusual manner.

According to information from the National Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control and National Search and Rescue, from the beginning of 2022 until now, the total damage caused by natural disasters is estimated to reach 2,400 billion VND, nearly half of the economic damage caused by natural disasters in 2021.

Vinh City "fell" in the flood in October 2020. Photo: Nghe An Newspaper

Despite many efforts, according to the general assessment, disaster prevention and search and rescue work still has many shortcomings. The ability to respond to major natural disasters is still passive and confused; the resilience of infrastructure is still inadequate, the system of equipment serving disaster prevention andsearch and rescuestill limited… In particular, a part of the people and the government are still subjective and careless, leading to unfortunate losses, especially human losses.

Farmers install field pumps to "save" summer-autumn rice crop. Photo: Phu Huong

Based on the scenarios and plans that have been developed, when a natural disaster occurs, localities and units must promptly respond immediately. In particular, it is necessary to implement the "4 on-site" motto well in the locality, especially in difficult areas that will be cut off and isolated in terms of communication and transportation. In fact, in recent years, theassault teamDisaster prevention and control has coordinated activities very effectively. We need to continue to strengthen and improve the capacity and activities of this force to improve response capacity in each locality and unit to minimize damage to both people and property.

In August 2019, Ban Ve Hydropower Plant was forced to discharge floodwater at the highest level since the Hydropower Plant went into operation in 2010 due to the impact of heavy rain combined with floods from Laos. Photo: Document: Phu Huong

After a natural disaster, to bring activities back to normal, recovery work is very important. It is necessary to stick to the scenario, urgently overcome the consequences of natural disasters as quickly as possible to ensure the stability of people's lives and production, in which special attention is paid to environmental treatment issues.