Draft Law on Disaster Prevention to Top 2012 Agenda of Vietnam Parliament

Vietnam plans to discuss a draft law on natural disaster prevention and mitigation at the National Assembly’s last session of 2012, the Ha Noi Moi newspaper reported Aug 10. The information was released at a recent meeting between agencies in charge of building the draft law at the presence of Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai. The draft will focus on five main contents, prescribing the applied scopes and objects, the state policies in the fields of preventing and reducing natural calamities as well as concretizing banned activities in the prevention works. Deputy PM Hai asked the compiling agencies to continue to review, perfect some important issues like scope, organizational structure for disaster risk management; further research management model, mechanisms to prevent natural disasters of other countries as well as hold international references to complete the draft law. Vietnam is seriously affected by various types of natural disasters each year, including floods, landslides, droughts, tropical storms and hail, experts said, adding that natural calamities seem to have become more complicated and frequent amid climate change. Natural disasters left 66 dead and missing, damaged over 10,000 houses and inundated 67,000 ha of rice and other crops, causing a total loss of VND2.2 trillion ($105.77 million) in the first half of this year. (Ha Noi Moi – New Hanoi Aug 10)