Vietnam suffers economic losses of nearly VND40 trillion due to natural disasters in 2020

Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh on June 4 chaired a national online meeting on natural disasters prevention and control, search and rescue.

At the meeting, Thanh asked localities to outline scenarios for natural disaster responses amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Up to seven storms are forecast to hit mainland Vietnam this year, he said, calling for determination to minimise any losses.

 Thanh, who is also head of the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control and Chairman of the National Committee for Disaster Response and Search and Rescue, emphasised the need to improve forecasting capacity and invest more in natural disaster studies and the hydrometeorological monitoring system.

 Tran Quang Hoai, General Director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s General Department of Disaster Prevention and Control, last year, during the COVID-19 pandemic, 500 natural disasters were reported in the world and the region with 30 storms - a record number of storms activating in Atlantic, serious rains/floods and landslides in many countries including China, Japan and South Korea. 

Natural disasters claimed 8,200 deaths and missing, caused economic losses of over US$210 billion worldwide, leaving negative impacts to all fields of life and socio-economic development of countries across the world.

In Vietnam, 14 storms, a depression, 120 flash floods and landslides, 90 earthquakes, and other types of natural disasters were reported last year, claiming 357 fatalities and economic losses of VND39.96 trillion (US$1.73 billion).

Hoai said that from the beginning of this year, Vietnam reported 53 small earthquakes, 105 hails and thunderstorms, five cold spells, 11 big floods and 21 riverside landslides.

As of May 2021, natural disasters killed 21 people, injured 29 ones, damaged more than 4,300 houses and more than 32,000 ha of crops. The natural disasters caused economic losses worth about VND 119 billion.

According to the national weather forecast agency, in the remaining months of this year, about 12-14 storms and tropical pressures will appear in the East Sea, of which five to seven storms/tropical pressures could affect Vietnam’s mainland.