PM inspects flood response in Hanoi’s riverside areas overnight
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh visited Hanoi’s Trung Gia and Da Phuc communes on the night of October 9 to oversee flood response and recovery efforts after learning that many areas were heavily inundated as river levels rose.
For more than a day, rising river levels have flooded parts of the communes, prompting the local civil defence command, together with military, police, and volunteer forces, to encourage and assist residents to evacuate to safety, while reinforcing embankments to prevent floodwaters from breaching them.
So far, the main and auxiliary dikes, along with smaller local embankments in villages such as An Lac and Phong My, have been raised by about one metre, keeping floodwaters from spilling into residential areas.
However, on October 9 afternoon, sections of the Hanoi–Thai Nguyen railway passing through Trung Gia commune were eroded and washed away, causing track sagging and a temporary shutdown of the line. Teams from Vietnam Railways Corporation were on-site assessing the damage and planning repairs, with work expected to be completed soon.
At the site, PM Chinh ordered Hanoi authorities to closely monitor river levels and implement appropriate flood response measures to ensure residents’ safety.
It is essential to remain vigilant, keep equipment, vehicles, and personnel, particularly military forces, ready, and ensure shelters and essential supplies are in place to evacuate residents if needed, he emphasised.
The leader also called Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Nguyen Hoang Hiep for an urgent briefing on river levels, instructing agencies to closely monitor conditions and manage upstream reservoirs flexibly to prevent downstream dike breaches, including carefully timing spillway operations at hydropower reservoirs.
That night, he visited the forces working overnight to reinforce the dikes and local residents, urging the community to stay united and support one another, and, in the event of flooding, to strictly follow official guidance, with priority given to rescuing the elderly, children, and pregnant women.
The PM asked Hanoi authorities and relevant agencies to study long-term, fundamental solutions for the dike systems, as river levels have now surpassed historical flood peaks.
He was accompanied by Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee Bui Thi Minh Hoai, Chief of the General Staff of the Vietnam People’s Army and Deputy Minister of National Defence General Nguyen Tan Cuong, and other officials.
Post-storm floods devastate crops, homes across northern Vietnam
As of 5pm on October 8, heavy rains triggered by the aftermath of Typhoon Matmo had inundated and damaged nearly 22,600 ha of rice and crops, killed or swept away hundreds of thousands of livestock and poultry, and flooded close to 17,000 houses.
