The people of Nam Po district (Dien Bien) built a temporary bridge to go after being swept away by floodwaters. (Photo: Xuan Tu / VNA)

The Government Office has just released a written notice of the conclusion of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at the September 1 meeting on natural disaster prevention and control and dealing with a number of emerging urgent issues.

According to Conclusion, Vietnam belongs to the group of countries affected by many types of natural disasters. From the beginning of 2020 up to now, droughts, saltwater intrusion, forest fires, storms, floods, flash floods, landslides, thunderstorms, lightning, hail, earthquakes have continuously occurred, causing damage, affecting production and people's lives in many localities, especially in the northern mountainous and midland provinces.

Before the forecast, the situation of natural disasters, storms and floods is still complicated and unpredictable, in the last months of the year there may be late floods in the North, big floods in the South Central region, strong storms at sea, in Meanwhile, some storms and tropical depressions have the ability to directly affect the Vietnamese mainland, the Prime Minister requests the Central Steering Committee for natural disaster prevention and control; The National Committee for Incident and Disaster Response and Search and Rescue at all levels, branches and localities must not neglect, be subjective, should raise their vigilance, continue to direct, urge, inspect and do well prevention, fighting and overcoming of consequences of natural disasters with the aim of reducing the damage to the lives and property of the people and the State.

The Prime Minister has set out 8 key tasks for the prevention, fighting and overcoming of consequences of natural disasters in the coming time. Specifically, the Prime Minister asked the Central Steering Committee for natural disaster prevention and control; The National Committee for Incident and Disaster Response and Search and Rescue, ministries, branches, committees and authorities at all levels in localities focus on leading, directing and seriously implementing Directive 42. -CT / TW dated 24/3/2020 of the Secretariat on strengthening the Party's leadership in disaster prevention, response and recovery and Resolution No. 76 / NQ-CP dated 18 / 6/2018 of the Government and the direction of the Prime Minister on the prevention of natural disasters. Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control; Relevant ministries, branches and localities closely monitor natural disaster developments, promptly direct and implement the work of natural disaster prevention, fighting and overcoming under the motto "four on the spot"; Natural disaster prevention and control starts from the community, from the grassroots.
The Prime Minister also requested the Central Steering Committee for natural disaster prevention and control; The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the provincial People's Committees, according to their assigned functions and tasks, actively direct and implement the work of ensuring safety of irrigation and hydroelectric dams; supervise and operate safely and effectively water reservoirs, especially the reservoir system on the Da river hydropower ladder, the reservoir has a large capacity, the dam is critical, absolutely forbidden to store water with unsafe water reservoirs; increase the installation of monitoring, monitoring, information on flood discharge operation and warning to ensure safety in downstream areas.

The National Committee for Incident and Disaster Response and Search and Rescue shall direct and urge the addition and update of rescue and rescue plans, especially the plan to cope with prolonged heavy rain and flood. wide area, natural disasters, incidents occurred in remote areas; coordinating with Ministries: National Defense and Public Security to readily direct forces and means to coordinate with specialized rescue and rescue forces and other local forces in promptly and effectively implementing rescue and rescue when required.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, relevant sectors and localities continue to invest in enhancing the capacity to monitor, monitor, forecast and warn natural disasters, in which resources should be mobilized, especially from the commune. In order to focus on investment in natural disaster monitoring and monitoring systems, first of all to increase the density of rain-measuring stations in order to improve the quality of flood and rain forecasting.

The Prime Minister assigned the People's Committees of provinces and cities to organize a general review and inspection of dangerous areas, especially areas at high risk of landslides, flash floods that directly affect the population to actively organize the relocation, evacuation, ensure safety in case of natural disasters; to inspect dikes and dams, especially key, critical and damaged locations and works in order to promptly repair, overcome and plan to ensure safety; reviewing disaster response plans, including updating scenarios of responding to situations of strong storms and heavy rains that last for many days in the area, and population evacuation plans to ensure safety against natural disasters ear, ensuring prevention and control of COVID-19 epidemic; continue to invest in supporting equipment and building the capacity of commune-level natural disaster prevention and control forces in order to do well the prevention and control of natural disasters under the motto "four on the spot."
The Prime Minister asked concerned ministries, branches and localities to focus on quickly overcoming the consequences of natural disasters, to prioritize investment in upgrading natural disaster prevention and control infrastructure and works to actively respond, reduce damage caused by natural disasters, in which localities are responsible for allocating local budgets, including capital sources of medium-term public investment plans, local budget contingencies, disaster prevention funds and mobilization other lawful capital sources for overcoming consequences of natural disasters and performing a number of urgent natural disaster prevention and control tasks.

The Prime Minister assigned the Ministries of Planning and Investment and Finance to review, synthesize, balance and propose capital arrangement for the medium-term public investment plan, the 2020 central budget reserve and legal sources according to regulations to support localities in quickly recovering consequences of natural disasters and performing a number of tasks of urgent natural disaster prevention and control, urgent handling of a number of key dykes, critical irrigation reservoirs and dams to ensure safety against floods, high risks of incidents occurring.

Regarding the earthquake situation in the northern mountainous provinces, the Prime Minister assigned Vietnam Electricity to preside over and coordinate with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, relevant agencies and owners of lakes. Hydropower dam has plans to measure, check seismic and impact on large hydropower reservoirs such as Son La, Lai Chau, Hoa Binh ... not to be passive, unexpected, or incidents occur. Also in the Conclusion, the Prime Minister gave comments on support to overcome the consequences of thunderstorms and hail occurring in early 2020 in some northern mountainous provinces; proposing to handle landslide in Ong Tuong hill area, Hoa Binh province; dealing with landslide of Da river bank, area of group 26, Dong Tien ward, Hoa Binh city, Hoa Binh province; proposing to support landslide repair in Quy Phu embankment area, Nam Dinh province; proposing to support some northern mountainous provinces in overcoming the consequences of floods, flash floods, landslides from the beginning of the year up to now; request assistance in handling urgent critical dykes, faulty culverts under dykes./.