On May 10, in Hanoi, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang chaired a nationwide online conference to review the natural disaster prevention and search and rescue work in 2023 and to deploy key tasks for 2024. Attending the conference in Dak Lak were members of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Hoai Duong, along with representatives of relevant departments, sectors, and localities.

Participants attending the conference in Dak Lak.
Reports at the conference indicated that in 2023, Vietnam experienced extreme natural disasters in various regions, including 5 storms and 3 tropical depressions; 229 heavy rainstorms, floods, inundations, landslides; 509 thunderstorms, lightning, hailstorms; 817 riverbank and coastal erosion incidents; 346 earthquakes. Natural disasters caused significant human and material losses, affecting people's lives, production, and causing numerous accidents at sea, structural collapses, chemical incidents, pollution, oil spills, fires, and explosions, more severe than the previous year. In 2023, the country experienced 5,331 incidents, resulting in 1,129 deaths and missing persons, and an estimated economic loss of over 9,324 billion VND.
Since the beginning of 2024, several severe natural disasters have occurred nationwide, including intense cold spells, frost damage, droughts, saline intrusion, landslides, soil subsidence, and flooding due to high tides, historic heatwaves at 110 out of 186 observation stations nationwide... Natural disasters have caused 14 deaths and missing persons, with an estimated material damage of over 399 billion VND.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan speaking at the conference
In particular, in Dak Lak province, in 2023, there were 19 natural disaster events resulting in 6 deaths, 16 injuries; 283 houses damaged; 9,392 hectares of crops affected; trees uprooted, and infrastructure damaged. Estimated losses were around 172.5 billion VND. In the first four months of 2024, severe heatwaves have occurred extensively. As of now, the entire province has about 5,100 hectares of various crops, with 1,348 households and over 5,300 residents using well water facing water shortages for daily use.
Currently, localities and units are actively implementing drought prevention measures and urgently reviewing and summarizing the drought and water shortage situation.
Although extreme natural disasters occurred in 2023, the prevention, response, and recovery efforts were actively and timely carried out by all levels, sectors, and localities, contributing to minimizing damages and early restoring production and stabilizing the lives of affected areas' residents.
In addition to the achieved results, the natural disaster prevention and search and rescue work also revealed some shortcomings and limitations, such as the effectiveness of implementing the "4 on the spot" principle in some places was not high; the resilience of infrastructure in general and disaster prevention structures in particular was low; the establishment of commune-level rapid response teams for disaster prevention in some places was only nominal; forecasting and early warning for some extreme weather events were still limited.

Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang speaking at the conference
According to forecasts, in 2024, there is a possibility of about 11-13 storms and tropical depressions, including about 5-7 directly affecting mainland Vietnam; the risk of flooding in urban areas, large cities due to localized heavy rains; high risks of landslides, soil erosion in mountainous provinces; from July to September 2024, the ENSO phenomenon is likely to transition to La Nina.
To proactively prevent and effectively respond to natural disasters, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang proposed that all levels, sectors, and localities continue to improve the quality of natural disaster forecasting and warning work, ensuring increasingly timely and accurate information; review and improve legal frameworks, mechanisms, and policies on disaster prevention, response, and recovery; continue to raise awareness, provide guidance on disaster prevention and response skills to the community through simple and effective means; effectively prepare plans for disaster prevention and search and rescue, avoiding passive situations when disasters occur; continue to mobilize maximum resources for disaster prevention and mitigation; enhance international cooperation in disaster prevention.
Minh Hue