Fishermen in central Quang Tri province (Illustrative image. Photo: VNA)
Thua Thien – Hue (VNA) – The People’s Committee of the central province of Thua Thien–Hue have discussed measures to help fishermen overcome difficulties from the recent marine environmental incident to stabilise their living and develop production.
The committee set up a council to weigh the damage after the cause of mass fish deaths in the four central provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, and Thua Thien–Hue was announced on July 1.
According to initial evaluations, the incident caused a local economic loss of about 135 billion VND (6.07 million USD) and affected 6,212 households with 30,450 people as well as fishing activities.
Implementing the Government’s policy, Thua Thien–Hue has supported 15kg of rice for one person per month over a maximum of six months. The beneficiaries are family members of fishing vessel owners and workers working on vessels as well as fishing logistics and salt-making households.
Meanwhile, fishery business owners and fishing logistics vessels could enjoy loans at lowest interest rates at the credit organisations assigned by the State Bank of Vietnam.
So far, Thua Thien-Hue has received 800 tonnes of rice and 15.5 billion VND (697,500 USD) from the government to support fishermen.
The provincial People’s Committee has directed localities and sectors to promptly distribute rice to the right people.
It also raised over 8.5 trillion VND (382.5 million USD) and 25 tonnes of rice from organisations and businesses to support the affected families.
The mass fish deaths along beaches in Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue in early April, which caused by poison in untreated wastewater from Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Limited Company, seriously disturbed the fishing activities of locals.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, aquacultural farms reported 67 tonnes of dead fish while the volume of natural fish found dead was estimated at 100 tonnes.
Statistics showed that Ha Tinh’s total seafood output in the first six months of this year was down 16,000 tonnes year on year, while Quang Binh suffered a drop of 23,600 tonnes, Quang Tri 16,000 tonnes and Thua Thien-Hue 13,300 tonnes.-VNA
