People helped to be proactive against natural disasters: PM

 

Hanoi (VNA) – Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has asked competent agencies and forces to issue more warnings and instructions to help local residents take proactive measures against natural disasters.

He issued a telegraph requesting ministries and committees concerned to focus on rebuilding efforts after torrential downpour triggered by a tropical depression caused big losses in humans and property in the south-central region, especially Khanh Hoa province on November 18.

He asked the people’s committees of these provinces and Khanh Hoa province to search for missing people, treat the injured, support families of the deceased, and provide shelters and food for those in affected areas.

The leader asked competent agencies and forces to continue examining areas prone to landslides and flash flood so they can proactively evacuate local people to safer places as the weather forecasting agency said rains and floods may be occurring complicatedly and there are high risks of landslides, flash flood, and flooding in the south-central provinces.

In the document, he sent his condolences to families of the victims of landslides and floods.

Torrential downpour caused by a tropical depression killed 14 people and injured 11 others in the south-central coastal province of Khanh Hoa, while four people went missing as of 14:00 on November 19.

The tropical pressure originated from the weakened Storm Toraji. The rainfall in Khanh Hoa was measured at between 30 mm – 200 mm on November 17-18. In particular, Nha Trang city reports rainfalls of 380 mm.

Forty-three houses were pulled down or damaged by severe floods.

At a press conference in Hanoi on November 19, Nguyen Truong Son, deputy chief of the General Department of National Disaster Prevention and Control, pointed out Khanh Hoa province has paid inadequate heeds to the prevention and control of natural disasters in its socio-economic development plan.

It is a must to increase communications to raise people’s awareness and skills in actively dealing with storms, post-storm floods, flash floods, and landslides, he said.

Local authority’s role and responsibility in responding to natural disasters in general and landslides in particular need to be heightened, he added.

A working delegation led by Hoang Van Thang, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and Standing Vice Head of the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control arrived in Khanh Hoa to instruct post-disaster work.-VNA