The Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation of Thailand has started an urgent campaign to make artificial rain in the face of widespread drought in many areas although it’s now the rainy season in this country.
Thailand is going to experience its worst drought in a decade, as average precipitation across the country has fallen far short of monthly averages, said the Meteorological Department.
Natural disasters have taken a heavy toll on the north-central province of Thanh Hoa over recent years. To be more resilient to the disasters this year, the province has been repairing and upgrading dykes and other irrigation systems as the rainy season is just around the corner.
The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Council has urged Tan Binh district authorities to speed up the progress of flood-prevention projects inside Tan Son Nhat international airport to prepare for the coming rainy season.
The Indonesia disaster mitigation agency said on April 26 that heavy rain has pounded the capital city of Jakarta, causing the Ciliwung river to burst its banks, prompting flash flooding in at least 17 areas, and forcing hundreds of people to evacuate.
The flood warning in Hanoi will be implemented via the HSDC Maps application, which can be used on smart phones, according to General Director of the Hanoi Sewerage and Drainage Limited Company Vo Tien Hung.
The Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency (BMKG) of Indonesia has warned of potential natural disasters such as floods, landslides and whirlwinds as the Southeast Asian country is entering the peak of the rainy season.
Lower water levels in reservoirs and barren farmland can be easily seen in many parts of the south-central and Central Highlands region even though it is the rainy season.
Thailand’s Office of National Water Resources (ONWR) on October 19 raised official concerns over the emerging drought crisis in the country's northeastern region.
Despite great efforts taken by Ho Chi Minh City’s authorities to fight flooding, many flood-control projects have been delayed by administrative procedures.
Residents in the central city of Da Nang should intensify measures against dengue fever as the rainy season has started, encouraging mosquito populations to grow, said a local doctor.
Ho Chi Minh City reported a year-on-year decrease of 36 percent in the number of dengue fever cases in the first seven months of 2018, however recently recording its first death caused by the disease this year.
The southern province of Binh Phuoc has recorded 973 malaria cases in the first half of the year, up by 66 percent year-on-year, including one death, reported by the provincial Department of Health on July 16.
Although the number of dengue fever cases in Vietnam in the first months of this year posted a year-on-year decrease of 41.4 percent, there remain numerous latent risks of the disease to break out, according to the Department of Preventive Medicine.
One or two storms or low pressure are forecast to appear in the East Sea and are likely to affect Vietnam’s mainland in June, according to the National Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Centre.
In late May and early June, the northern mountainous province of Lai Chau enters the rainy season. When rains cool mountains down, local ethnics begin new crops.
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