Vietnam is witnessing natural disasters hitting all of its regions throughout the year, with strong intensity, wide coverage and increasing extremity and abnormality.
Thousands of residents in the ancient city of Hoi An have gone days without running water in their homes due to a saline intrusion, said Nguyen Van Dung, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee.
Landslides, triggered by sea encroachment, high tides and strong winds caused five houses to collapse in the south central province of Binh Thuan on February 11 and 12.
HCM City is struggling to seek funds for projects in seven breakthrough programmes because of budget constraints, officials said at a recent meeting in the city.
Despite the Government’s willingness to enter into FTAs, Vietnamese companies are not taking advantage of such pacts to increase exports and are even losing out on their home turf to foreign rivals.
Authorities in the Mekong Delta provinces have helped locals cope with the prolonged drought and salinity in rivers, minimising the losses caused by the twin disasters.
UN Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson has pledged to do his utmost to encourage more support for Vietnam to deal with difficulties related to climate change.
Residents in An Duc commune, Ba Tri district, in Ben Tre, on April 24, flocked to the communal People’s Committee Office to get drinking water under a desalination programme.
The Mekong Delta has been hit a double blow of prolonged drought and salt intrusion due to the impacts of El-Nino, as well as low water supplies from underground and the upper river.
Farmers in the Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu have constructed 460 dams at a cost of over 3 billion VND (130,000 USD) to prevent seawater intrusion for about 46,000 hectares of rice.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung requested fighting saltwater intrusion as a key political task during a conference in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on March 7.
A workshop was held in Ninh Binh province on September 7 to design policies and mechanisms to strengthen regional connectivity in response to disasters and climate change in the Red River Delta.
In the Mekong Delta, Ca Mau, Kien Giang and An Giang provinces and Can
Tho City have invested approximately 2.4 trillion VND (112.84 million
USD) to build five major infrastructure development projects to
tackle climate change from now to 2020.
Phu Quoc Island will soon get a casino and could potentially become a
special economic zone, Chairman of the Kien Giang provincial People's
Committee Le Van Thi told Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.
The Prime Minister has decided to allocate 234.5 billion VND (11 million
USD) from the State budget for 14 provinces in order help them overcome
the aftermath of droughts and saltwater intrusion.
Denmark is willing to share its experiences in climate change
adaptation with the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre, a
representative of the Danish Embassy said.
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