Prime Minister directs proactive prevention of strong storms, floods and landslides

On August 4, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh signed and issued Official Dispatch No. 75/CD-TTg on proactively preventing, combating, and overcoming the consequences of natural disasters in the coming time.

The dispatch stated that since the beginning of 2024, natural disasters have continued to develop abnormally and unpredictably. After severe heat waves, droughts, and prolonged saltwater intrusion at the beginning of the year, recently there have been consecutive heavy rains, landslides, and localized flooding in many places, especially in the Northern, North Central, and Central Highlands regions.

The Prime Minister has directed the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, relevant ministries and branches, especially localities, to closely monitor the situation, proactively direct and organize the implementation of natural disaster prevention and control work early and from afar, and proactively overcome the consequences as soon as they occur, contributing to limiting damage caused by natural disasters.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, from the beginning of 2024 to now, natural disasters have caused 104 deaths and missing people (most of the deaths and missing people were due to landslides or floods), with material damage estimated at about 2,000 billion VND.

According to the warning of the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, the La Nina phenomenon will affect our country from August, the risk of strong storms, heavy rains, floods, flash floods, landslides, and unsafe dams is very high, seriously threatening production, daily life, life and property of people.

The Prime Minister requested ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, government agencies, and Chairmen of People's Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities, according to their assigned functions and tasks, to continue to proactively focus on directing and closely monitoring the developments of natural disasters, proactively direct and resolutely, promptly, and effectively implement measures to respond to and overcome the consequences of natural disasters.

Chairmen of People's Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities shall be more proactive in focusing on leading, directing, and organizing the implementation of natural disaster prevention, control, and overcoming consequences in their localities according to the "four on-site" motto with the most proactive, timely, and drastic spirit to ensure safety of life and minimize damage to property of the people and the state.

Localities urgently review and complete response plans for each type of natural disaster that may occur in the area, especially response plans for storms, floods, landslides, flash floods; identify key vulnerable areas to proactively develop scenarios for deploying forces and means to be ready to respond, rescue and search and rescue when situations arise...

Provinces and cities should organize screening and identification of dangerous areas, especially steep slopes at risk of landslides, flash floods, and deeply flooded areas along rivers and streams to proactively organize the evacuation of people and property from dangerous areas. For places where there are no conditions for immediate evacuation, there must be proactive evacuation plans in case of natural disasters to ensure the safety of people's lives.

In addition, proactively arrange local budgets (including local budget reserves and other legal sources of capital) to implement the work of preventing, combating and promptly overcoming the consequences of natural disasters according to regulations with the motto of absolutely not letting any people lack shelter, hunger or other essential items, not letting epidemics or serious environmental pollution occur after storms, floods, and inundations, not letting them greatly affect the education of students.

The Prime Minister requested the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment to focus on directing the hydrometeorological forecasting agency to promptly assess and draw lessons from the work of monitoring, forecasting and warning of natural disasters in the recent past, continue to focus on improving the quality of forecasting and warning of natural disasters, landslides, subsidence, etc. to ensure reliability; closely monitor developments, forecast and promptly inform about natural disasters and extreme weather phenomena to authorities, localities and people to be proactive in directing and implementing natural disaster response work.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development organizes a 24/7 duty to closely monitor the situation and developments of natural disasters, advises the Prime Minister to direct and proactively urge relevant ministries and branches, especially localities, to promptly deploy disaster prevention, control and overcoming consequences according to the authority and tasks assigned in Resolution No. 102/NQ-CP dated June 29, 2024; promptly synthesizes the damage situation, coordinates with relevant ministries to report and propose to the Prime Minister to support localities to overcome consequences when they exceed the local handling capacity.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development directs the implementation of work to ensure safety for the dike system and irrigation works, especially key weak dikes, damaged and degraded irrigation dams, and unfinished dike works; ensure safety for fishing vessels and protect agricultural production.

At the same time, preside over and coordinate with relevant agencies to direct the safe operation of irrigation and hydroelectric reservoirs, especially large reservoirs on the Da River hydroelectric cascade system, ensuring absolute safety for the works, contributing to flood reduction downstream, and effectively exploiting water resources.

The Minister of Industry and Trade coordinates with localities to direct the work of ensuring safety for industrial production, power systems, and hydroelectric reservoirs; promptly overcome incidents, ensure power supply for production and people's daily life...

The Minister of Transport directed relevant agencies and units to continue to coordinate with relevant forces and localities to proactively deploy traffic safety assurance work (including at sea, on rivers, on roads, railways, and airways) in case of natural disasters, and to promptly support localities in overcoming landslides and traffic disruptions, especially on national highways and main traffic routes.

The Minister of National Defense proactively directed the Military Regions and forces stationed in the area to review, develop plans, and proactively mobilize forces and means to coordinate with localities and relevant forces to deploy disaster response, search and rescue, and quickly overcome the consequences of natural disasters according to regulations.

The Minister of Public Security directed local police to develop plans and proactively deploy support for localities and people to prevent, combat, and overcome the consequences of natural disasters, and search and rescue when situations arise.

Vietnam Television, Voice of Vietnam, Vietnam News Agency and other central and local media should increase reporting so that people can grasp information about the developments and forecasts of natural disasters, instructions from authorities, and guide people in response skills to reduce damage caused by natural disasters, especially human loss.

The Prime Minister assigned Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang to directly direct ministries, branches and localities to proactively and effectively implement the work of preventing, combating and overcoming the consequences of natural disasters.

The Government Office, according to its assigned functions and tasks, monitors and urges ministries, branches and localities to seriously implement the Prime Minister's telegram.