Floods and Landslides in Mountainous Areas of Vietnam

Flash Floods and landslides are dangerous disasters which occur very often after storms in mountainous area of Vietnam. Steering Committees of Flood Protection Departments informed that in 2014, after the second storm named Rammasun, flash floods killed 27 people and 7 people were killed by landslides.

"Vietnam needs to have specific plans, because of the complicated changing in global climate with hidden abnormal factors. Especially, the effects of El Nino are appearing more clearly in Vietnam" , Mr. Hoang Duc Cuong, director of National Hydrometeorology Forecasts Center said.

Until now, plan of flood protection in Vietnam has been researched and deployed in order to minimize the damage, especially on human being. This plan also succeeded in many areas, one of its local is Phu Yen Province.

Tran Le Viet Linh- student of Asian University, whose hometown is Phu Yen and she had a real experience in how her citizen prepared and avoiding floods and landslide after the second storm named Rammasun occurred in the middle of July, 2014 (interviewee).

She said that her house was not in flooded areas, but other locals in the province also were not destroyed too much. No one was killed by flash floods and landslides. Although over 750 hectare of crops was damaged by inundation, other areas were saved. Steering Board for Flood and Storm Prevention and Control set up a map of "dangerous areas" which have high risk of flash floods and landslides and emigrated people out of dangerous areas.

This was the first target in the prevention. It also contained the program of encouraging citizens to elevate risks of disaster, equipping the alert systems.

The other target was the long-term purpose: improving protection forest, upgrading irrigation schemes. At the first time, the plan had many difficulties such as lack of finance in resettlement and fixing dams. People did not want to move to another place because here is the place where they live through generations, and also because of their habit.

Besides, new residential compound might not have enough quality for their life. However, the government tried improve awareness of citizen by educate every people, from school to each house, to many meetings.

They also established the Foundation for Constructing New Residential Compound which people can donate to help compatriots in need.

The state of disaster is occurring every year. The amount of rain is increasing in intensity and speed, the destruction of the surface of land, the deforestation. So that plan of flood protection should be deployed more and more in all the country.