Possible heavy flood on the rivers

Raining season of year 2012 came pretty soon at the end of April. Rainfall on the rivers of this year is higher than the average rainfall of previous years. Flood peaks on La Nga river, Dong Nai river might rise at the end of September and in October, approximately level 3. With this level 3, there will be plenty of hamlets belonging to Tan Phu, Dinh Quan and Vinh Cuu get heavy flooded.

In three year (2009 – 2011), there was no big flood in the province. Water level of La Nga river, Dong Nai river at the fountainhead only reached over level 1 and did not cause hollows flooding. In raining season of year 2012, however, climate suddenly changed: storms came sooner and big rains came to all of provincial sites. In particular, on 30^th March and 1^st April, storm No.1 occurred and caused damage of 1,600bil. It also left damaging consequences that needed solving in years.

 Flood on La Nga river can reach level 3 alarm

Mr. Nguyen Phuoc Huy – Manager of Dong Nai Hydrometeorological Center, stated: “From now to the end of the raining season there are still 2 – 3 storms ahead and they can affect Vietnam. Storms at the end of the season often directly affect the Southern. When a storm comes, there will be big rains at fountainhead causing flooding on Dong Nai river and La Nga river rise quickly and possibly to level 3.

Besides, Dong Nai often has widespread showers these days. There will be thunderstorm and tornado in big rains which causes flash flood on highland, slope sites and river bends in the province. In addition, big rains also flood the inner routes and goes through Bien Hoa City streets, such as: national route 1A, national route 51, Dong Khoi St, Nguyen Ai Quoc St, Pham Van Thuan St… a part of national route 51 going through Long Thanh District also regularly get deeply flooded when heavy rain long lasts. A part of national route 20 going through Gia Tam 3 Commune (Thong Nhat Distric) often get flooded from 0.3 – 0.5m. Big rain causes routes flooding, resulting traffic jams in hours and affects transportation.

Storm No.1 on its way to the land turned out to a tropical depression and caused a huge loss when it was going through Dong Nai Province. The consequence was so significant because the local authority and people were subjective and passive in preventing and fighting against the storm. To limit the damage to its minimum, localities in the province are currently preparing solutions to prevent and fight against storms or floods, also they are ready to offer aid to people when there are natural disasters.

From the very beginning of rainy season of year 2012, the Provincial People’s Committee sent an official letter appealing localities to assigned their staff to work on 24/24 shift when there was either a storm, tropical depression or a flood to know the situation well, to predict worst perspective and to closely combine with their own forces and other forces sent by higher class. In fact, there are still some locals who have not been very positive and serious in their working shift when there is big rain or flood. According to some people, when there was big rain, they called the responsible office to find out there were not any officials there.

Mr. Tran Dinh Minh - Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture - Rural Development cum Deputy of Standing Department of Flood and Storm - The National Committee for Search and Rescue spoke: “In the last few days, the province held rehearsal to practice methods of searching, rescuing and evacuating people to a safe place when a storm comes. The province is currently checking all of districts, towns, cities and communes where it is highly possible to have flooding in order to give instructions and solutions in time when the weather goes bad. However, if we want the preventing flood working to be effective, locals have to be positive to follow the motto “four sites”: command at site, force at site, materials at site and logistics at site.”

According to Mr. Nguyen Phuoc Huy – Manager of Dong Nai Hydrometeorological Center, this year the weather is quite unpredictable, storm’s route, tropical depression change continuously so that people have to watch weather forecast. When there is a sign of a storm, a tropical depression comes to the South they should be ready because a big rains from fountainhead will make a flood rise quickly.