Recently, since 2016, Vietnam has suffered 3 similar super typhoons causing serious damage to people and property. Specifically, typhoon No. 1 (typhoon Mirinae) entered the Gulf of Tonkin in July 2016, killing 3 people, leaving 4 missing, and completely collapsing 30 houses; typhoon No. 10 (typhoon Doksuri) made landfall in Ha Tinh and Quang Binh in September 2017; typhoon Molave devastated Quang Nam - Binh Dinh in October 2020, injuring 13 people...
To reiterate, storms and floods in Vietnam are one year less, one year more, one year bigger, one year smaller. They are “scheduled” events, not natural disasters that are so unexpected that we cannot react in time. We have had a lot, if not more than enough, of experience in preventing and responding to super storms.
In addition, unlike a few decades ago, weather forecasting equipment is now more modern and accurate; prevention, response and rescue equipment has also been upgraded; houses are mostly solidly built, strong enough to "withstand" normal storms... This has helped people and authorities reduce some of the confusion and fear of both prevention and response.
In addition, in recent years, we have had a common effective formula for storm and flood prevention from the central to local levels with the motto "four on-site" (on-site command, on-site forces, on-site means and materials, on-site logistics) and "three readiness" (proactive prevention, timely response, urgent and effective recovery).
However, the issue that needs to be discussed here is that almost every year, any storm or flood that passes through leaves behind human losses due to fallen trees, flying corrugated iron, overturned boats, sinkholes, etc. It is worth mentioning that, in addition to the unavoidable losses, there are still losses due to the subjective awareness of the people and local authorities, which are repeated in a regrettable and blameworthy manner.
Recently, based on the "4 on-site" and "3 ready" principles, some localities in the Central region such as Thua Thien - Hue, Da Nang, Quang Nam have "creatively" added another "on-site" which is "on-site self-management" to remind each other not to be subjective in any situation, minimizing human losses.
The 5th on-site - "on-site self-management" is a good experience, which has been proven effective in the Central localities in recent times. This experience needs to be disseminated and replicated in many other localities, especially the provinces within the scope of influence of super typhoon Yagi.
Before each natural disaster, the top priority for protection is still human life because as our ancestors said: "As long as there are people, there will be property". Therefore, in storm and flood prevention, the most important thing right now is to "prevent" subjective awareness of both people and authorities to minimize human damage!
