Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc delivered a speech at the Conference
Generally assessing these activities in 2018, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc affirmed that the political system has attached importance to and flexibly used the motto "four on site". The application of science and technology in observing, forecasting, monitoring and supervising key projects and key areas has initially been being paid attention to (over 1,000 automated rain gauge stations, 51 multi-disaster warning stations, 78 surveillance camera locations for monitoring significant dykes and many large reservoirs have been installed, being funded by many financial resources, etc.)
In particular, the power sector was highly appreciated by the Prime Minister for many initiatives in disaster prevention, response and mitigation; for taking measures to timely assist local people and communities affected by natural disasters.
Besides achievements of the whole system, the Prime Minister pointed out a number of outstanding issues that needed to be resolved such as: Damages caused by natural disasters are still very severe; the capacity of forecasting and warning natural disasters is limited, yet to satisfy the increasing requirements of the society, not keeping up with increasingly complicated and unusual disaster happenings due to climate change; etc.
Assigning specific tasks in the coming time, the Prime Minister requested the Central Steering Committee on Natural Disaster Prevention and Response to make up natural disaster preparedness plans at the national level, especially in response to typhoons, super typhoons, heavy rains and floods, flash floods, landslides, etc.
The Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Industry and Trade to undertake the safety of hydropower reservoirs and structures under the state management of the Ministry, including 371 reservoirs, especially large or inter-regional ones, with clear processes and concrete responsibilities.
On the side of Vietnam Electricity, in recent years, the operation of hydropower reservoirs under EVN’s management has strictly complied with regulations and procedures. Under the direction of the Central Steering Committee, the regulation of reservoirs in the Red River basin has contributed to completely cutting down severe floods, at the same time the highest water level of the Red River in Hanoi and downstream areas in 2018 was always lower than the alarm level 1 (9.5m).
Warning systems for downstream areas have been installed in all hydropower plants of EVN, relevant information have been broadly disseminated on local mass media. Until now, dam and hydropower reservoir owners have already examined their dams; jointly developing protocols between dam owners and local authorities in operation of hydropower reservoirs; reviewing and supplementing natural disaster response plans for projects, downstream areas of dams, emergency response plans; organizing rehearsals according to approved plans.
Before the rainy and stormy season this year, Vietnam Electricity directed their generation, transmission and distribution units to review and inspect their installations, reinforce critical positions to ensure safety in case of natural disaster occurrence; prepare and spend all resources in timely remedying incidents caused by natural disasters.