Hanoi to upgrade natural disaster prevention infrastructure

Hanoi will pilot modern technology in upgrading infrastructure for natural disaster prevention, Vice Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Manh Quyen said at a meeting on May 5.

Quyen said that Hanoi has sufficient resources as well as knowledge about technological models to respond to natural disasters.

Vice Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Manh Quyen speaks at the meeting on May 5. Photo: Kinhtedothi.vn

In the next two months, Hanoi districts will inspect and assess the safety of dams and dykes in order to enhance the natural disaster preparedness, Quyen said.

The deputy mayor also suggested departments and localities should be strictly on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

"If there is no strict direction and proactive response, the consequences caused by natural disasters will be very heavy," Quyen emphasized.

He said Hanoi will upgrade the system of natural disaster prevention infrastructure, focusing on technology application to handle the issues of dykes and dams, ensuring efficiency and sustainability.

For his part, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Ngoc Son said that over the past years, the city has been directly affected by three storms which had caused heavy rains and damage to dykes and irrigation systems in the districts of Thanh Tri, Ba Vi, Dong Anh, My Duc and Son Tay town.

The capital city has also been affected by 27 cold spells and 11 heat waves, which greatly negatively impacted people's lives and production, Son said.

He stressed that natural disasters are becoming more and more extreme and erratic. Therefore, departments and localities need to make careful natural disaster prevention plans.