Vietnam pledges the continued efficient use of international assistance which is not only of an important material value but also of a meaningful moral and spiritual support to the Vietnamese people at this critical time after typhoon Ketsana, said the Vietnamese representative.

Ambassador Bui The Giang, Vietnam ’s Deputy Permanent Representative at the UN, made the statement at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)’s urgent meeting on natural calamity situation in the Asia-Pacific held in New York on Oct. 6.

Ambassador Giang extended his deepest sympathy and condolences to Vietnam ’s neighbours in the Asia Pacific over the losses natural calamities have inflicted on them during these days.

He reported that typhoon Ketsana - the strongest storm hitting the nation for the last 40 years since 1969, has killed 163 people, injured 629 others while leaving a dozen missing in central Vietnam .

According to initial reports, the typhoon also destroyed more than half a million houses, tens of thousands of hectares of rice fields, an important section of the transport system as well as the irrigation and electric networks in the region.

The ambassador affirmed that apart from efforts to prevent possible losses before the storm, most notably the evacuation of over 200,000 people from high-risk areas, the Vietnamese Government has put in place a series of measures to counter the storm impacts, including emergency care for families of the dead, medical relief for the wounded, search for the missing, food, clean water and sanitation for the affected, and rehabilitation of damaged facilities.

“In our efforts we have received timely and valuable assistance from many countries and organizations,” the Vietnamese representative said. He took the occasion to express the sincere gratitude of the Vietnamese Government and people to UN agencies, many governments and non-governmental organizations, saying that their assistance has relieved significantly the Vietnamese people’s sufferings and will contribute to an early recovery of the people./.