Chairman of Nghe An Provincial People's Committee: No one should be left homeless, lacking food or clothing

On the afternoon of July 24, the National Civil Defense Steering Committee held its first meeting on natural disaster prevention, control, and search and rescue in 2025 in both in-person and online formats.

Comrade Pham Minh Chinh - Politburo member, Prime Minister, Head of the Steering Committee chaired at the Government bridge point.

At the Nghe An province bridge, comrade Le Hong Vinh - Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee chaired. Also attending were Major General Le Van Vy - Deputy Chief of Staff of Military Region 4; leaders of departments and branches and online connection to the commune level.

No one should be left homeless, without food or clothing.

Speaking from Nghe An province, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Le Hong Vinh reported to the Prime Minister and the Steering Committee on natural disaster prevention, control and search and rescue in 2025, especially with storm No. 3.

In the context of being a province that is regularly affected by many types of natural disasters, Nghe An always determines the motto of closely following the direction of the Government and the Prime Minister to "proactively prevent, respond promptly, overcome urgently and effectively, in which prevention is the main thing".

Therefore, right before the storm season, the province has resolutely directed localities to proactively review and develop disaster response plans and scenarios suitable to the specific situation in the locality according to the motto "4 on-site".

With that spirit, in the face of the complicated developments of storm No. 3, the province seriously and urgently implemented the contents of the Prime Minister's dispatches on focusing on response and on focusing on overcoming the consequences.

However, from 7:00 p.m. on July 21 to 7:00 p.m. on July 22, rainfall in the province was generally from 100mm to 200mm, in some places over 250mm; at the same time, the large water flow from upstream caused historic floods, isolating and inundating many mountainous communes, infrastructure was washed away, severely damaged, seriously affecting people's lives.

The province has evacuated 3,440 households; mobilized more than 2,700 military and police officers to respond and support people in a timely manner; mobilized rescue equipment on rivers such as boats and canoes.

As of 10:00 a.m. on July 24, 6 communes were completely isolated and 24 communes were partially isolated. For these areas, the Ministry of National Defense has mobilized helicopters to transport goods and food. The province has also proactively prepared goods in advance so that they can promptly arrange for transportation to support the people.

The Chairman of Nghe An Provincial People's Committee pledged: Wherever the water recedes, the province will quickly fix it; in which, on July 25, all traffic routes in the area will be cleared; at the same time, the power grid system will be restored when 7,800 customers still lost power due to 4 affected branch lines.

With the same motto, comrade Le Hong Vinh said that the province supplies goods, gasoline, develops plans to ensure goods and medicine to serve the essential needs of the people; implements the work of restoring agricultural production; and overcomes damage to people's houses.

"Currently, the province assigns provincial leaders to closely follow the locality to closely direct implementation in each field to ensure living conditions for the people," the Chairman of Nghe An Provincial People's Committee reported and affirmed: "The province is determined to not let any people fall into the situation of sleeping on the ground, lacking food and clothing."

Reporting to the Prime Minister and the Steering Committee, comrade Le Hong Vinh also drew lessons learned in the work of preventing, responding to and overcoming natural disasters; especially, although it has only just been put into operation, it shows that the commune-level authorities have demonstrated their closeness, responsibility, staying close to the locality, staying close to the people, being proactive, and not relying on superiors in the process of responding to the recent flood situations.

The damage caused by storm No. 3 is predicted to be huge. According to initial statistics, the whole province has recorded 3 deaths, 1 missing person, 4 injured people; 495 houses damaged, 1,276 houses had their roofs blown off, along with many serious damages to agriculture, transportation, irrigation, etc.

Faced with this situation, in addition to the efforts of the local government and people, the Chairman of the People's Committee of Nghe An province has proposed that the Government and the Prime Minister pay attention to supporting funding so that the province can soon overcome the consequences, especially for the infrastructure system of traffic, electricity, people's housing and offices...

In the long term, he recommended the need to develop sustainable settlement policies for people, ensuring stable housing with adequate essential infrastructure; at the same time, he proposed the construction of dual-use works such as at the headquarters of the People's Committee at the commune level, which both serve daily administrative activities and function as a place for rescue and relief when natural disasters occur, especially in difficult mountainous areas.

At the meeting, the Central Steering Committee listened to an online report from the bridge point of the People's Committee of Muong Xen commune, Nghe An province.

3 principles in preventing, responding to and overcoming natural disasters

In his concluding remarks, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh - Head of the Steering Committee chairing the Government bridge emphasized that "having tried, we need to try harder, trying and trying even harder"; the work of grasping the situation and responding to natural disasters must be extremely effective.

The implementation process must adhere to three basic principles: Prevention must be early, from afar, before an incident occurs; response must be calm, clear-headed, timely, appropriate, safe and effective; remediation must be joint, fundamental, comprehensive, involving all people and the entire sector.

Faced with the serious consequences caused by natural disasters, the developments of natural disasters are increasingly difficult to predict and irregular, the Prime Minister emphasized that the Party and State leaders always pay special attention to prevention, response and response work; requiring close and smooth coordination between forces and localities, ensuring maximum utilization of resources.

On that basis, the Prime Minister requested a shift from a passive response mindset to a proactive prevention mindset, with the motto: flexible and timely response; specific and effective solutions; people-centered, people-oriented; building communes and wards into "fortresses" to respond to natural disasters.

To realize the above vision, the Prime Minister directed to continue perfecting institutions suitable to the new situation; improving the capacity to forecast, respond to and overcome consequences; focusing on investing in essential infrastructure to have enough tools and conditions to evaluate and deploy effective solutions. In particular, it is necessary to apply the "4 on-site" motto in a practical and effective manner, associated with clear decentralization and delegation of authority from the Central to the grassroots level, ensuring resources and perfecting the national civil defense apparatus.

The Prime Minister also assigned specific tasks to each ministry, sector and locality to immediately implement key tasks in the coming time. Previously, in his opening speech, the head of the Government expressed his deep sympathy for the huge losses and property damage that the people of mountainous communes in Nghe An province are suffering due to the biggest flood ever in the province caused by storm and storm circulation No. 3./.

Thanh Duy