PM chairs national video conference on natural disaster prevention and control

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc chairs the conference - Photo: VGP

The central-level location saw the attendance of Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung, head of the central steering committee for natural disaster prevention and control; Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong, standing deputy head of the committee; representatives from Party and National Assembly agencies; and international experts and representatives of international organizations.

The conference, connected online with 689 districts in 63 provinces and centrally run cities nationwide, aimed to comprehensively review the natural disaster prevention and control work last year, existing shortcomings and lessons learned from the actual direction work over recent times, as well as setting a number of key tasks for the disaster prevention and control work this year.

Last year, natural calamities in the region and the world continued to see complicated, extreme and extraordinary evolutions, with a total of 600 spells of natural disasters at the national and regional scale. Global economic losses from natural disasters in 2019 were estimated at about US$150 billion.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc welcomes international guests to the conference. Photo: VGP

In Viet Nam, natural disasters did not take place with high frequency and fierceness, but they carried many extreme and abnormal factors throughout the country, with 16 out of 21 types of natural disasters, including 12 level-3 disasters: eight storms and four tropical low depressions;  in addition to 222 thunderstorms and tornadoes; 10 flash floods and landslides; four spells of extreme cold; 13 heat waves; 63 heavy rains and floods; 13 earthquakes; and high tides, riverbank erosion and coastal erosion in many areas in the Mekong Delta.

Disaster-caused damage in 2019 was minimized, especially in terms of human lives, with just 133 dead and missing. Total economic losses from natural disasters reached more than VND7 trillion (over US$300,000), much lower than the losses in the previous year (estimated at nearly VND20 trillion).

By the end of April 2020, Viet Nam reported 11 people dead and missing, over 44,000 houses damaged and unroofed, and more than 100,000 hectares of rice and crops affected due to natural calamities, with total economic losses approaching VND3.183 trillion./.

By Vien Nhu