31/08/2008
VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnam, one of the five countries possibly hardest hit by climate change, has set itself to raise sea and river dykes levels by 50 cm by 2020 and grow an additional 300,000 to 350,000 ha of wet-land forests and forests along dunes.
These were among measures raised for discussion at a workshop on natural disaster control and mitigation of climate change consequences held in Hanoi on August 30.
Experts also called for economic use of fresh water resources, ensuring supply of fresh water and environmental hygiene for saline water-affected, islands, drought and flood-prone areas, and studying new hybrids of plants and animal for saline water, drought and flood-hit areas that can stand climate change.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat assured participants of the ministry’s readiness to address climate change problems with a number of action programmes in hand.
“Official development assistance will also be used to help improve relevant staff’s working competence, transfer of technology and exchange of managerial experiences,” pledged the minister.
Phat also unveiled a plan to encourage all institutions and individuals, both at home and abroad, to finance natural disaster control.
“International cooperation in natural disasters warning and forecasting, personnel training, transfer of technology and exchange of information and experiences in natural disaster control, especially in searching and rescue operations will be prioritized,” he said.
United Nations Development Programme Country Coordinator John Hendra pledged to provide more and more information necessary for Vietnamese policy makers to study and work out good strategies against climate change. 30/08/2008
(29-08-2008)
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| The flood-proof residential cluster of Truong Long Commune’s Can Tho City for poor households in flood-prone areas. — VNA/VNS Photo Quang Hai |
HCM CITY — Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved the construction of more flood-proof residential clusters in flood-prone areas in the Cuu Long (Mekong) River Delta.
The new buildings are part of the second phase of ongoing national programme that began in 2001.
Total investment is estimated at VND2,387 billion (US$ 144 million), 50 per cent of which will be provided by the Government’s budget and the rest from local provincial budgets and other sources.
The second phrase of the national programme will last from 2008 to 2010.
The additional projects, as completed by 2010, will provide safe accommodation for over 33,000 households in flood-prone areas.
Eligible households include those that have not been relocated in flood-proof residential areas in the first phase.
Under the plan, the Viet Nam Development Bank (VDB) and the Viet Nam Bank for Social Policy (VBSP) will be responsible for providing loans for the households to build their new houses in the new clusters.
In addition, roads, garbage dump sites, water and electricity supply systems, and rivers dykes and embankment will be built to protect resettlers and their property from floods and landslides.
Of the VND2, 387 billion ($144 million) investment, VND1,136 billion ($68 million) will be used for upgrading and building infrastructure and VND164 billion ($ 9.9 million) for building garbage dump sites and upgrading rivers dykes and embankments.
The remaining VND1, 087 billion ($66 million) will be provided in loans with an annual interest rate of 3 per cent for local residents to build houses.
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HA GIANG — Ten people have been killed in landslides after two days of heavy rain - and a whirlwind - in Ha Giang Province. The deluge also caused wide-spread property damage and traffic jams. Those killed lived in Hoang Su Phi and Vi Xuyen districts. More than 30 houses were damaged by the whirlwind and lightning.
Landslides blocked traffic on the road linking Highway No 2 with the two districts, and to Quang Nguyen and Pa Vay in Su Xi Man district.
Immediately after the disaster, provincial and district leaders rushed to the area to see what help was needed.
Searches are still being made for those missing. |
In its first phrase, which lasted from 2001 to 2007, the programme built 1,043 such clusters containing 73,111 houses to accommodate 200,000 families. Total construction cost of the clusters in the first phase is US$200 million.
The ministry said the relocation programme had played a significant part in social and economic development in the Mekong Delta.
Landslide warning
Meanwhile, more than 108 points along the Tien and Hau rivers in the southern province of Dong Thap are at risk of landslides due to severe flooding, said the province’s Committee of Flood and Storm Control.
There have been 86 landslides, with a total length of 73km, along the banks of the two rivers, causing 28ha of land to be lost and two houses to be washed away. No casualties have been reported.
The banks of the Tien River in Sa Dec Town and Chau Thanh District’s An Hiep Commune have slipped by as much as five metres, reported the River Management Board 15.
It was also reported that the river’s banks slipped by as much as 20 metres in Phu Thuan B Commune in Hong Ngu District. — VNS 28/08/2008
HANOI, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Vietnam will spend nearly 2.4 trillion dong ($145 million) between now and 2010 to build dykes and relocate thousands of rice farmers because of heavy seasonal flooding in its fertile Mekong river delta, the government said.
The programme, approved early this week, would help 33,000 families resettle in areas away from landslides and floods, the government said in a statement on Wednesday.
About 20 percent of Vietnam's 86.5 million people live in the Cuu Long River Delta, the Vietnamese name for the Mekong river, which produces more than half of the country's paddy output and supplies more than 90 percent of its commercial rice.
Funding for the programme will come from the state budget, grants and soft loans from state-run Vietnam Development Bank. The funds would be used for building dykes as well as foundations for new villages to ensure farmers' homes stay above the Mekong floods' peak level in 2000, the statement said. Floods arrive between August and November each year in the Mekong delta, a large area of fertile soil in southern Vietnam where the Mekong river reaches the South China Sea after travelling more than 4,000 km (2,500 miles) from Tibet.
In 2000, the Mekong delta experienced the worst floods in four decades as waters rose to more than 5 metres, killing nearly 500 people, more than 300 of them children.
Early this month, the governments of Vietnam and Cambodia said rising Mekong floods may cause landslides and heavy flooding, but the seasonal floodwaters would also bring Vietnam's southern farmers good crops of rice and fish 26/08/2008
Development Workshop France (DWF) is very pleased to announce that the 2008 World Habitat Award has been awarded to the DWF project in Central Viet Nam « Preventing Typhoon Damage to Housing in Central Viet Nam”, which over the past 9 years has, through animated public awareness raising and demonstration, successfully promoted the preventive strengthening of houses against the effects of floods and typhoons. The value of applying the DWF ten key points of typhoon resistant construction that are promoted by the project has been clearly demonstrated by the good performance of strengthened buildings in the face of disasters events such as typhoon Xangsane in 2006 and the long flooding in 2007.
Central Viet Nam is hit each year by an increasing number of floods and storms and some 60% of the population regularly face severe damage or loss of their homes, with consequent economic loss and increased poverty. Since 2000 the DWF Viet Nam team has worked with families and local government to apply the key principles to both existing and new homes and to public buildings such as schools, kindergartens and markets. More than 1 300 home have been made stronger with support from the project, but many other families have chosen to adopt these safety principles when repairing or rebuilding their own homes. Credit provided by DWF and Vietnamese banks specifically for house strengthening is opening this possibility to more families.
Communicating these basic principles of safe construction is at the heart of the DWF programme activities. Hundreds of builders have been trained to apply the safety techniques. Ongoing awareness raising activities with partner communes develop a widespread understanding of damage prevention amongst the community and their leaders, and in schools teachers and school children take active part in spreading knowledge about ‘safe construction’.
Local and provincial government have become active supporters of the DWF Viet Nam programme, and the safe construction principles advocated by DWF are shared with other NGO and other countries on SE Asia, including recently devastated Myanmar.
The achievements of the DWF programme in Central Viet Nam would not have been possible without the active participation – and committed financial contribution – of the families and the Commune and Provincial People’s Committees of Thua Thien Hue province, and the World Habitat Award is above all recognition of this collaborative effort to make people’s lives and living conditions safer against future hazards.
DWF also takes this opportunity to thank its principle donors, CIDA (Canada), ECHO (European Commission Humanitarian Aid) and the Ford Foundation for their generous support over the years.
23/08/2008
HANOI, 22 August 2008 (IRIN) - Aid officials say emergency supplies have reached nearly all of those affected by recent heavy flooding in northern Vietnam. But as clean-up efforts continue, the country faces a fresh assault as river levels rise dangerously in the south.
"Because of global warming, Vietnam is experiencing more floods and disasters," said Setsuko Yamazaki, director of the UN Development Programme, addressing an inter-agency briefing this week on the damage done by the latest storm.
A total of 133 people were killed and 34 are missing after tropical storm Kammuri hit Vietnam 7-9 August, government officials said. Many residents died in their sleep when mudslides crushed their homes. Large swaths of rice fields were literally swept away, taking with them families' livelihoods.
In the province of Lao Cai, 18 percent of farming land was destroyed, said Tran Van Tuan, manager of the Natural Disaster Mitigation Partnership, which is coordinating with national and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and donors to respond to the humanitarian emergency.
Inter-agency assessment teams made up of NGOs, UN agencies, and government experts were dispatched to the hardest hit provinces after the floods hit. At a meeting in Hanoi on 20 August the teams reported that most of the floodwaters had receded and short-term relief was getting to villages previously cut off from aid.
18,000 homes damaged
But in order to repair more than 18,000 damaged houses and clean out 19,000 hectares of rice fields, longer-term aid will be needed, stressed the assessment teams.
"The government has been very active in helping victims," said Luu Quang Dai of the NGO Plan International who recently returned from surveying the damage in Phu Tho Province. "But the area is too much. It will take more than a year to recover. [In that time] many people will fall below the poverty line."
There were also concerns that many children will not be able to attend school this autumn. The government said 165 classrooms had collapsed or were washed away. At least 100 more are filled with rocks and mud. The assessment teams said families devastated by the storm would also have a difficult time paying tuition fees or buying books.
Early warning systems
In some areas, early warning systems have been installed to alert residents to evacuate. But when the waters rose, many of the alarms failed to go off.
"We do have some flood warning devices," said Le Thanh Du, deputy director of the Agriculture and Rural Department for Lao Cai Province. "It's just a pilot programme and it didn't work well. On that day, the electricity was cut off so the bell did not ring to warn the local people. I think if we have a comprehensive flood warning system, people living in flood areas could evacuate before the floods come."
Bracing for floods in south
As the northern provinces struggle to recover from the storm, 1,500km to the south, farmers in the Mekong Delta are bracing for a deluge of water dumped by the tropical storm days earlier in Laos and Cambodia. The water, which hit record levels in those countries, is flowing rapidly down the Mekong river into southern Vietnam.
"The water level is now at 3.3m and rising 7-8cm a day," Nguyen Van Khang, director of Agriculture and Rural Development in Tien Giang Province, told IRIN on 23 August. "The biggest threat now is that the flood coming from upstream could be combined with high tides."
Most of the summer rice crop has already been harvested, assuaging fears that the floodwaters will cause any immediate economic damage to Vietnam's rice basket. But preparations were under way to evacuate some 1,200 people if the waters rise much higher, noted Khang.
Unlike northern and central Vietnam, the Mekong is not subject to flash floods or landslides which cause most of the flood-related deaths. But when rivers burst their banks, entire villages can quickly become inundated. And, said Khang, the worst is probably yet to come: "We don't even reach the peak of the flood season until 15 September," he said.
Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)
Date: 22 Aug 2008
A meeting was held at the UNDP headquarters in Hanoi on Wednesday 20th August to brief stakeholders from Government, UN agencies, donors and NGOs on the results of the Disaster Management Working Group (DMWG) Joint Rapid Damage and Needs Assessments in Lao Cai, Yen Bai and Phu Tho provinces.
Three joint assessment teams visited the provinces most affected by the flooding that followed Storm No.4 (Typhoon Kummuri) from the 14th – 17th August. The teams visited a number of districts and communes in each province to collect detailed information on damage and community needs as a result of the flooding. The teams, deployed as part of a coordinated effort between the DMWG and the People’s Aid Coordination Committee (PACCOM), included members from PACCOM and a number of NGOs.
Following an update on official damage information and Government response activities given by NDMP (available below), each team presented their findings based on the information collected in each province. The overall assessment was that the Government at all levels was very active in responding to community needs, but that in some areas, the scale of the damage meant it was beyond the capacity of local authorities to meet some of the communities’ needs. It was also pointed out that while assessment teams were sent to the three most affected provinces, at least five more provinces had suffered some loss as a result of the storm and subsequent flooding.
NDMP will post electronic copies of each of the presentations from the meeting on this website (see below), as well as comprehensive reports from each of the joint assessment teams as soon as they are available.
The briefings made clear that some additional support will be necessary and now NDMP is calling on all stakeholders to share information regarding any planned or existing activities in response to this disaster. NDMP will regularly update information on this website to promote coordination and harmonization among responding agencies
The reporting meeting was hosted by the UN Natural Disasters and Emergencies Programme Coordination Group (UN NDE PCG) and co-chaired by Prof. Dr. Dao Xuan Hoc of the Central Committee for Flood and Storm Control (CCFSC) and Vice Minister of the Ministry for Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Ms Setsuko Yamazaki, UNDP Country Director, and Mr Jesper Morch, UNICEF Representative in Vietnam. Other participants included representatives from PACCOM, the DMWG, the Disaster Management Centre, NDMP and a large number of donors and NGOs.
NDMP's presentation
JAT Report in Lao Cai
JAT Report in Phu Tho
JAT Report in Yen Bai
20/08/2008
VietNamNet Bridge – So far this year, tens of children have been reported drowned in the Mekong Delta, where there are tortuous systems of rivers and canals.
The Mekong Delta is the land of water. There are around 28,000km of rivers, canals and many ponds, lakes, etc., which pose risks for local children.
People in Phu Loc town, Thanh Tri district, Soc Trang province still remember the heart-breaking deaths of three secondary school pupils last summer. These pupils, 11-12 years old, went swimming together in a canal near their houses when their parents were not at home. None of them could swim.
Over one month ago, three other pupils in Soc Trang city, Soc Trang province also drowned in an irrigation canal. The three children, 8, 9 and 10 years old, were hunting for field crabs and snails and they lost their footing in the deep water.
Ly Xiep, the father of a drowned child, said most children in his area can’t swim. Their parents are very poor and they are busy working so they don’t have time to teach their children how to swim, Xiep said.
In Hong Ngu town, Dong Thap province, nearly two months ago two brothers drowned in a pond. Tran Van Ut, the father of the these children, 9 and 7 years old, said the boys couldn’t swim and they several times asked his permission to go bathing in a near-by pond but the father didn’t give his consent. However, the boys were curious and they furtively went swimming in the pond and drowned.
Also at around the same time, a 12-year-old boy was reported dead from drowning in Long Xuyen city, An Giang province.
Holes at construction sites are also dangers for children. Recently, an 8-year-old drowned in such a hole in Bac Lieu town, Bac Lieu province.
Children must learn to swim themselves
Five pupils who couldn’t swim died in a shipwreck several months ago in My Xuyen district, Soc Trang province. The boat rower, Nguyen Van Trieu, who has had this job for more than 10 years, lost a daughter, 12.
After this case, everyone started asking the question: “How many children in the Mekong Delta have died of drowning? And how do local children learn to swim?”
According to the Health Ministry’s statistics, an average of 30 children die in Vietnam every day because of injuries, including over ten from drowning.
Because of hot weather, many children in the Mekong Delta go swimming in ponds, lakes, rivers. In early April 2008, the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs sent a special dispatch to all provinces asking local authorities to combine with families, schools and related agencies to teach children how to swim, but many provinces haven’t followed the request.
Some agencies in the Mekong Delta said they want to teach children swimming but they don’t have money. Some local Departments of Education and Training say the Ministry of Education and Training didn’t tell them to teach swimming at schools so pupils have to learn swimming themselves.
Recently, a businessman named Le Thanh Tuan, General Director of the Sao Mai Investment and Construction JS Company in An Giang province, sent an open letter to Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan expressing his wish to partly contribute to the community by preventing drowning among children.
After Tuan’s open letter, some composite companies in Nam Dinh province said they were willing to cooperate with Tuan’s company to produce special paper cases which become lifebuoys when they come in contact with water.
Note from DWF : Many NGO's (Oxfam, SC...) have swimming training prgrammes for children and adults (mainly women) in Mekong Delta. 19/08/2008
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Recent floods in Ho Chi Minh City have forced city officials to re-think their long-term flood-proofing plans.
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A deluge on August 1 left many Ho Chi Minh City streets knee-deep in water.
Reports from the HCMC Urban Drainage Company found 73 areas flooded to depths of between 20-60 centimeters.
Later, after more heavy rain on August 12, there were 40-60 centimeters of water on some of the city’s main streets.
Both floods caused severe traffic jams.
Nguyen Ngoc Cong, head of the HCMC Bureau of Water Management and Flood Prevention, said the city should develop annual, mid-term and long-term policies to solve the flood problem.
On August 9, the city administration began a short-term flood prevention project that will run until the end of the year.
The city Department of Transportation was assigned 15 flood prevention projects while the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development was ordered to speed up work on dikes and river dredging.
At the same time, the city’s Flood Prevention Center will work with its Urban Drainage Company to install walls along Tan Hoa – Lo Gom Canal to prevent flooding tides.
The center will also pump rain water out of the area.
Cong said these short-term solutions will reduce flooding by 50 percent.
Mid-term projects include drainage and canal improvement works around the inner city.
Two projects, funded by Overseas Development Aid (ODA), of this kind are being carried out.
The first one is the HCMC Environmental Sanitation Project at Nhieu Loc – Thi Nghe Canal, scheduled to finish in late 2009.
The other one, a Water Environment Improvement Project in Tau Hu, Ben Nghe, Doi and Te canals, is scheduled for completion in 2014.
The first phase of the project, which includes waste-water treatment works, will be finished in March 2010.
The second phase will last from 2009 to 2014 and will improve the water environment in districts 4, 6 and 8.
The most costly project is long-term and requires funding of more than VND11.5 trillion (US$692 million).
Initiated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, this scheme is designed to lower the tides in the city’s main waterways and improve drainage in the city’s low-lying areas.
The project will also help minimize tides and flooding from parts of the Sai Gon – Soai Rap, Vam Co Dong and Dong Nai rivers.
The ministry has also asked HCMC administration to prevent people from filling in lakes or canals, where water from the inner city will be pumped during high tides.
At that time the rivers cannot receive much more water.
Studies already estimated that the city’s total area of lakes, canals and other places that can contain water must not be less than 15 percent of the city area itself.
Nguyen Ngoc Cong said this package should solve the city’s flooding problem.
The project is expected to be approved by the government this month, he said. |
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Relief services will be managed by one state agency – the Fatherland Front – and businesses and press agencies will no longer be able to individually distribute aid, according to a recent government decision.
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Money to support victims of disasters had previously been sent to large press agencies, but now will be pooled in a relief fund controlled by the Front, said Ha Thi Lien, an officer of the agency.
Vu Trong Kim, general secretary of the agency’s central committee, said the committee will meet Monday to talk about creating relief services departments in different localities.
To support the victims of tropical storm Kammuri in the north, Kim said the Front has campaigned nationwide to raise funds and local branches of the agency have already launched operations to receive and distribute relief aid to victims, even though specific relief departments have yet to be formed.
“The Front won’t distribute aid directly to victims but will transfer the money to provincial administrations, which then will dispense the funds to district and communal authorities,” Lien said.
It will take at most 15 days for the aid to reach designated recipients.
The agency will transfer aid to its local branches by issuing money transfer notes to expedite the process.
It is necessary for the funds to be transferred through intermediate stages because, according to Lien, “commune authorities are most knowledgeable about the damage that local residents suffer.”
There were times victims had to wait for up to six months before receiving aid because funds had been sent to different agencies, some of which didn’t know how to distribute money fairly, according to Lien.
The Front will use the media to inform the public about aid distribution in different localities as well as send officers to inspect the relief services in the areas as a follow-up.
As relief funds will be centralized under the management of one agency, the Front can allocate portions of aid for long-term disaster support such as building hospitals, schools and other infrastructure for local victims, Lien said.
Do Viet Duc, manager of the Ministry of Finance’s State Budget Department, said according to the new mandate on managing relief aid, any agencies mobilizing aid will first have to get permission from local Front branches – except press agencies and charity funds.
Additionally, relief departments will have to allot funds to specific victims if donors specify such stipulations.
Duc said the Ministry of Finance will cooperate with the Fatherland Front to closely monitor how relief money is used. |
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