Promoting underground power grid and telecommunications infrastructure to cope with natural disasters

Power and telecommunications grids in areas that have not been underground are paralyzed.

After storm No. 3 made landfall, Hai Phong and Quang Ninh were the two localities that suffered heavy damage to the power and telecommunications grids. Accordingly, Hai Phong had a total of 3 power stations and 669 power poles and lighting poles that were broken and severely damaged, nearly 6,000m of wires were damaged, causing Hai Phong's power grid system to be completely paralyzed for many hours.

In Quang Ninh, telecommunications and cable television businesses have suffered heavy losses. Dozens of transmission towers in these two provinces and cities have been broken or collapsed, causing the telecommunications network to be paralyzed at times.

"The telecommunications network is still being repaired and the extent of the damage has not been fully assessed. Cable TV businesses in the area suffered about 9.5 billion VND in damage. Postal businesses suffered an estimated 3 billion VND in damage," said a representative of the Department of Information and Communications of Quang Ninh province.

The severely damaged power grid and telecommunications system are mainly concentrated in areas that have not been underground. Meanwhile, in Hanoi, thanks to efforts to bury the power grid, the city's electricity sector has significantly limited power outages due to storms and rains, while minimizing damage. However, in many inner-city areas, power lines and telecommunications cables are still tangled in alleys, becoming a nightmare for residents. During the recent storms and rains, Mr. Pham Tien Minh (Thanh Tri, Hanoi) was always in a state of fear of electrical incidents. The area where he lives is a small alley, with a dense system of power lines hanging densely on electric poles, strung along the alley.

"The tangled cables and wires not only ruin the landscape, obscure the view, are dangerous, and compromise information security," said Mr. Minh, hoping that in the near future, the undergrounding of power grids and telecommunication cables will be implemented more drastically and quickly.

Accelerate the process of undergrounding power grids and telecommunication cables

In fact, besides the urban aesthetic factor, undergrounding contributes to minimizing electrical incidents, improving grid reliability, eliminating incidents that cause transmission interruptions caused by people unintentionally such as balloon jams, kite flying, scaffolding, etc.; increasing the capacity and quality of electricity supply services to customers.

However, a representative of Hanoi Electricity Corporation said that burying all power cables on 1,200 streets would require a huge amount of money. Meanwhile, the infrastructure planning is not yet complete. Therefore, the participation of related units is needed to solve the difficulties.

A representative of VNPT told Lao Dong that in order to respond to natural disasters and storms, VNPT Group has synchronously deployed many storm prevention measures, such as focusing on investing in solid underground telecommunications transmission infrastructure and extensive telecommunications networks, ensuring the ability to maintain communication when storms make landfall and the ability to quickly restore incidents when storms pass, contributing to supporting people and businesses in the area to quickly stabilize their lives and business activities.

Regarding the undergrounding of telecommunication cables, according to the Ministry of Information and Communications, it has requested the People's Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities to direct specialized agencies to strengthen the undergrounding of telecommunication cables in their localities.

This is to ensure the safety of telecommunications infrastructure, contribute to improving urban aesthetics, and ensure proper implementation of regulations on undergrounding and refurbishing telecommunications cables in the 2023 Telecommunications Law and related legal documents.

In parallel with directing the development of plans for undergrounding telecommunication cables in the area, the People's Committees of provinces and cities are also requested to pay attention to setting targets for undergrounding telecommunication cables. At the same time, urge, inspect and supervise enterprises implementing undergrounding telecommunication cables, ensuring that telecommunication enterprises strictly implement undergrounding according to the approved plan.