Vietnam to Suffer Severely from Disasters with Larger Economic Scale: Minister

Vietnam will suffer from severe damages caused by natural disasters and clime change if its economic scale is larger, state media cited Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong as warning. The minister made the statement at the conference of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD)-run General Department of Natural Disaster Prevention and Control on December 26 to review in-year activities and make a plan for 2021. In his speech, Mr. Cuong evaluated the tasks of prevention, rescue, and weather prediction. He pointed out the weaknesses and disadvantages of each task while stressing the importance of improving the capacity of the responding forces. The minister also asked relevant agencies and localities to be well prepared to respond to natural disasters, notably in the context of the larger economic scale and more abnormal weather conditions. According to the conference, Vietnam has been hit by 14 storms, two tropical depressions, 264 thunderstorms, tornadoes, heavy rain, 132 floods/landslides, and 90 earthquakes. Besides, the country has faced drought, severe saline intrusion, riverbank/coastline erosion, sea dyke subsidence in the Mekong Delta, and others. Natural disasters have caused 291 deaths and 66 missings while leaving economic losses of VND39.9 trillion ($1.7 billion) this year. (Kinh Te & Do Thi, Kinh Te Do Thi)