On the afternoon of October 3, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha chaired a meeting on responding to storm No. 11 (storm Matmo).
At the meeting, Chairman of Lao Cai Provincial People's Committee Tran Huy Tuan said that the whole province had 7 deaths, 3 missing people, 10 injured people; nearly 12,000 houses were flooded... due to storm No. 10.
Up to now, the province has basically overcome the situation, with only 4 villages remaining isolated. Lao Cai identifies the top urgent task as traffic improvement, both to ensure the circulation of goods and relief, and proactively responding to storm No. 11.
The province is urgently reinforcing landslides and installing steel baskets to ensure safe movement. People's evacuation work was carried out earlier, because the land was soaked with water, with a high risk of landslides.
The province has prepared food, medicine, and necessities on the spot, especially in areas at risk of isolation; reserved gasoline, generators, and mobilized machinery, equipment, and motor vehicles to vulnerable points for timely response.
Currently, Military Region 2 and the Provincial Police are maintaining thousands of officers and soldiers on duty at vulnerable locations to work with the locality to overcome the consequences and be ready to respond when necessary.
Meanwhile, the leaders of Tuyen Quang province pointed out 3 main causes of widespread flooding in the locality: huge rainfall; large flood discharge; stagnant drainage system downstream.
Currently, Tuyen Quang has deployed forces at vulnerable locations to continue to stay, while adding necessities and equipment to be ready to respond to floods caused by storm No. 11.
Senior Lieutenant General Huynh Chien Thang - Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People's Army said that from September 2025 to now, many military units have remained at the base, not returning to their units to directly participate in rescue and overcoming the consequences of storms No. 9 and No. 10, and are preparing to deal with storm No. 11.
Localities need to proactively coordinate with military forces stationed in the area, through the Provincial Military Command, to review areas that are often cut off, arrange in advance for human resources, food, food and communication, " close cooperation, reasonable assignment" between the army and militia to maximize the effectiveness of available forces.
For coastal areas, Senior Lieutenant General Huynh Chien Thang suggested that localities resolutely not let fishermen and boats go to sea after the ban, and not be subjective and go to sea too early immediately after the storm makes landfall, causing unfortunate damage.
Agreeing with this opinion, Major General Nguyen Hong Nguyen - Deputy Chief of Office of the Ministry of Public Security emphasized that localities must seriously learn from the cases of shipwreck and missing fishermen in storm No. 10, strictly inspect and review, not letting fishermen stay on the boat.
The representative of the Ministry of Public Security also noted that storm No. 11 affected the same area that had just suffered severe consequences from storm No. 10. The Ministry of Public Security has decided to retain 100% of the troops that have participated in responding to storm No. 10.
Thereby, it is proposed to develop a standard process to respond to strong storm circulation at level 14-15, clearly defining the responsibilities and specific actions of each industry, especially in handling urban flooding, to avoid confusion as in the past.
