An erosion prevention embankment section is built along the Ba Ray River in Tien Giang province’s Cai Lay district. (Photo: VNA) The coastal province has faced saltwater intrusion from the sea, strongwinds, and erosion along its coast, rivers and canals this year, and thesenatural disasters have affected agricultural production and the lives of localpeople, according to its Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention andControl, and Search and Rescue.
It had 15 whirlwinds that flattened a house, blew off the roofs of 213 houses,damaged 29ha of vegetables, 50ha of rice and nearly 1,000 fruit trees in thefirst nine months of the year, with total estimated damages of 6.2 billion VND (260,000USD).
During the period, the province had 98 erosion cases along its coast, riversand canals with a total eroded area of 4.1 km long. The province has spent 68.9billion VND (2.9 million USD) to fix the erosion cases.
The province has not been directly hit by storms and tropical depression thisyear, but strong winds and waves at sea have affected fishing activities.
Nguyen Duc Thinh, head of the Steering Committee’s Office, said thesteering committee has cooperated with relevant departments, agencies andlocalities to prepare human resources, facilities and food to be ready to copewith natural disasters and mitigate their damage this year.
Local authorities have regularly inspected the safety of dykes andembankments, and other preparations to cope with natural disasters.
The steering committee has established an inspection group to check theworks of preventing and controlling natural disasters in localities from now tothe year end.
The steering committee, in cooperation with relevant departments,agencies and localities, has developed a natural disaster map to take proactivemeasures for coping with natural disasters.
In the dry season, salt water normally enters deep into fields throughthe mouths of the two main rivers, the Tien and Vam Co, affecting agriculturalproduction and causing a shortage of fresh water for household use in theprovince’s western region, according to the province People’s Committee.
Rising sea levels and erosion have damaged large areas of mangroveforests along the province’s 32km coastline, it said.
To mitigate the impact of natural disasters, the province hasrestructured agricultural production in coastal areas in recent years.
It has encouraged farmers to switch to growing drought-resistant cropsin rice fields in coastal areas which cannot secure irrigation water in the dryseason.
It has implemented various projects of planting mangrove forests andbuilding erosion prevention embankments and saltwater prevention sluices.
In 2016-21 period, the province spent 494 billion VND (20.7 million USD)to fix 664 eroded sites along coasts, rivers and canals with a total erodedlength of 60km./.
VNA
