Japanese experts gathered at a meeting in Vietnam’s southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City to share its experience in adapting to natural disasters amid the huge negative impacts of climate change. The best solutions to disaster combat are developing infrastructure associated with urban planning and building observatories using wireless communications and solar energy to ensure their stable operation in emergencies, said experts from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Regarding urban planning, they proposed turning HCM City into a nuclear urban area based on its geographic location in the center of the southern key economic region, the southern east-west corridor and the Mekong region. The network of ring roads and centripetal roads in HCM City should be expanded, along with routes linking the city with the Mekong Delta and the central southern regions as well as Cambodia. It should also build urban railways in suburbs. Dr. Tran Anh Tuan from the Ministry of Construction said that there are about 55 cities and towns located in flood-prone areas in the Mekong Delta, where over 50% of its acreage and population are living with floods for between 3-6 months per year. He added the ministry will study Japan’s experiences in natural disaster control with a view to applying them to this region. The twin natural disasters in Japan in March 2011 left 18,550 people dead and missing and destroyed 130,000 houses. The seminar, themed “recovery after the great earthquake in Japan and safe urban planning in Vietnam” is an activity to mark the Vietnam-Japan Friendship Year 2013. (Kinh Te Viet Nam The Gioi – Vietnam & World Economy Sept 12 p2)
