On July 3, the Department of Management and Construction of Irrigation Works, Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, issued Official Dispatch No. 08 on ensuring the safety of irrigation works, preventing flooding and waterlogging due to heavy rain affected by storm No. 1 Maysak.
According to the forecast bulletin at 10:00 AM on July 3rd of the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting, the center of storm No. 1 is located at about 17.5 degrees North latitude; 110 degrees East longitude, about 90km south of Hainan Island, China. The strongest wind near the center of the storm is level 8-9, gusting to level 11. In the next 3 hours, the storm will move in a Northwest direction, speed about 10km/h.
Forecast from the night of July 3rd to the night of July 4th, the Northeast region and Thanh Hoa will have moderate rain, heavy rain and thunderstorms, common rainfall of 70-150mm, locally very heavy rain over 200mm. The meteorological agency warns of the risk of heavy rain, over 100mm in 3 hours.
On July 5th day and night, the Northeast region will continue to have moderate rain, heavy rain and thunderstorms, common rainfall of 30-60mm; especially the Northeast region 50-100mm, locally over 180mm.
To proactively respond, the Department of Management and Construction of Irrigation Works requests the Departments of Agriculture and Environment of the Northern Midlands and Mountains regions including Tuyen Quang, Cao Bang, Lang Son, Phu Tho, Thai Nguyen; Quang Ninh, Thanh Hoa and Irrigation Works management and exploitation units to urgently closely monitor the developments of storms, floods and hydrometeorological forecast bulletins.
Localities need to review and specifically inspect key irrigation works and rural domestic water supply works at risk of incidents to proactively plan responses. In particular, it is necessary to pay attention to the safety of irrigation reservoirs, rural domestic water supply and storage works under construction, deep-lying works, underground works, and drainage works.
For key irrigation reservoirs that do not ensure safety, the Department requests consideration of limiting or not storing water to ensure the safety of works and downstream areas.
The Department also requests localities to organize zoning of crop areas at risk of flooding and waterlogging; carefully prepare drainage plans for newly planted seedlings and rice areas. When heavy rain occurs with the risk of flooding and waterlogging, it is necessary to urgently operate the maximum capacity of irrigation works to drain water.
For reservoirs with flood discharge gates, operation must be based on rain forecasts to develop appropriate scenarios, proactively lower floodwater levels, ensure safety of works and not discharge floods abnormally causing downstream unsafety. Early warnings to people in downstream areas before reservoirs discharge floods or when there is a risk of incidents must be seriously implemented.
The Department of Irrigation Works Management and Construction also requests units to organize 24/24 hour duty duties during rain and floods; arrange on-duty personnel at works at risk of incidents, promptly handle unusual situations from the first hour, and deploy response according to the "four on-site" motto.
In addition, localities need to propagate to people to proactively store water in households, use clean water economically, safely, and effectively; and at the same time guide simple solutions for collecting, storing, and treating water in case of clean water shortage incidents.
