In the face of complex developments of climate and weather as well as their heavy consequences, the Central Military Commission (CMC) and Ministry of National Defence (MND) always pay attention to leadership of departments and units in the entire military to grasp and bring into play their core role in preventing and responding to natural disasters and conducting search and rescue, contributing to the building of a safe society.

In recent years, as a result of global climate change, natural disasters, incidents, and catastrophes are on the rise and witness unusual, irregular developments, which cause enormous socio-economic losses for many countries and territories in the world. In the first half of 2022 alone, severe floods in Australia, China, and India; prolonged droughts in the United States; hot weather and tremendous storms in Europe; and other natural disasters caused damage at over $72 billion, higher than 10 years before.

Viet Nam is among the five nations hardest hit by global climate change. This is proved by the fact that big storms and tropical lows in the East Sea are on the rise, occur unseasonably, and cause floods, mudslides, and great losses of lives and property. According to statistics, in the 2016 – 2021 period, there were roughly 1,631 reported fatalities caused by natural disaster events. The total economic loss due to natural disasters amounted to nearly 203 thousand billion Vietnamese dongs that period. In 2022, there were more than 1,000 reported cases with 21 out of 22 types of natural disaters nationwide. Consequently, 175 people died and economic loss reached about 19,500 billion Vietnamese dongs. In the first half of this year, there were over 1,200 natural disaster events nationwide, which not only inflicted great losses of lives and property on individuals, organisations, and the State but also had adverse influence on socio-economic development of the country.   

Ministry of National Defence awards individuals participating in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in Turkey

The situation places higher requirements on disaster prevention, control, and mitigation as well as search and rescue. With its core role in this task and on the basis of deeply perceiving Resolution No. 28/NQ-CP, dated March 1, 2023 of the Government on promulgating the Action Program to implement Resolution No. 22-NQ/TW, dated August 30, 2022 of the Politburo on civil protection through 2030 and beyond, the MND has worked out plans to synchronously carry out the Project on developing and improving capacity to respond to incidents and natural disasters and undertake search and rescue through 2030 and vision 2045 in the entire military. It has also issued many directives and circulars to instruct implementation. Additionally, the entire military has promoted education and propagation aimed to make cadres and soldiers well aware of the importance of natural disasters prevention and control as well as search and rescue; formulated plans in alignment with missions, equipment, and forces; conducted regular training; closely collaborated with forces of localities and enterprises on development of plans. This provides the foundation for enhancing exercices to improve command and control of activities to respond to natural disasters in localities, branches, and areas of operation. Thereby, over the past six months, together with other forces, the People’s Army has deployed 23,784 soldiers and 1,315 vehicles to participate in response to natural disasters and incidents; undertaken 734 search and rescue missions, which rescued 538 people, 49 vehicles, hundreds of houses, and 957 hectares of forests; informed 41,766 vessels and 228,692 people about coming disasters, thus enabling them to find safe havens; evacuated 32 households. More importantly, in case of emergencies at sea, the military has provided over 3 tonnes of rice, nearly 22,600 litres of fresh water, and other essential commodities for 203 vessels with 740 fishermen from Binh Thuan and Ninh Thuan anchoring at islands in the Spratlys. Apart from playing the core role in responding to natural disasters and carrying out search and rescue operations at home, last February, a military contigent was deployed to Turkey to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief for victims of the earthquakes. The contribution of Viet Nam has been acknowledged and appreciated by Turkish people and international friends.

In the time to come, natural disasters are likely to occur more frequently in a complex, unusual manner, which have negative influence on socio-ecnomic infrastructure and defence and security operations, especially people’s lives and property. Specifically, natural disasters may destroy high-rise building, chemical factories, irrigational, hydroelectric lakes, dams, and plants, mines, oil and gas exploitaton and transport, air and sea transport, fishing activities, etc., causing unforeseeable catastrophes. To further leverage their core role and accomplish their missions to respond to natural disasters and undertake search and rescue, departments and units in the entire military need to proactively implement the following solutions.

First, it is necessary to promote understanding of situations and proactively advise local party committees and authorities to enhance leadership and direction of response to natural disasters and search and rescue. Party committees and commanders of departments and units continue to thoroughly grasp directives and resolutions of the CMC and MND on the missions to respond to natural disasters and undertake search and rescue, most notably Resolution No. 689-NQ/QUTW, dated October 10, 2014 of the CMC on preventing and responding to natural disasters and carrying out search and resuce through 2020 and beyond. They are to advise local party committees and authorities to regularly strengthen steering boards and command boards for disaster management and search and rescue at all echelons; develop operating regulations and clearly assign responsibility for each member; complete policies and regulations on the management and enhanced command and control of the corps of cadres. In today’s industrialisation and modernisation process, many activities and jobs are greatly vulnerable to complex weather. Military commands at all echelons, therefore, need to cooperate with local agencies and authorities on studying factors relating to geography, population, culture, economic development, profession, etc., which aims to give prediction and warning about potential serious incidents, catastrophes, and pandemics. This will provide the foundation for adjusting and improving plans for timely, effective natural disaster prevention and control. This also serves as a basis for assessing effects of policies on socio-economic development in alignment with national defence and security; formulating plans to build structures and modernise vehicles and equipment used for search and rescue.

Troops of 414 Engineering Brigade (Military Region 4) conduct disaster prevention and relief exercise (Photo credit: qdnd.vn)

Natural disasters often occur suddenly and have devastating effects, thus causing disruption to services. Consequently, to proactively prevent and respond to disasters as well as reduce their damage require units to cooperate with localities on regularly examining and adusting responses conducive to each type of disasters and incidents such as mudslides, subsidence, earthquakes, erosion of coastlines and riverbank, floods, hail, whirlwind, lightening, massive fire, drought, saltwater intrusion, and so forth. They must be on duty 24/7; be proactively aware of weather changes; regularly update plans and prepare forces for natural disaster prevention and control. It is essential to well carry out the command and control mechanism in disaster management and search and rescue, especially the unified management from the Government to ministries, branches, and localities as well as among forces in the same area. Close cooperation must be established between military units and local party committees and authorities, which aims to prepare forces and vehicles for any extraordinary circumstances. To gain high effectiveness requires departments, units, and localities to well carry out civil protection exercises that enhance prevention, preparedness, and disaster response; practise plans for natural disaster mitigation at all levels, of which importance is attached to mobility, practical activities to respond to disasters and undertake search and rescue, and safety guaranteer. There is a need to closely combine training with carrying out exercises according to plans, which aims to improve command, coordination, and capacity to respond to natural disasters and undertake search and rescue in difficult, complex conditions.

Currently, our specialised equipment and vehicles used for response to incidents, natural disasters, and search and rescue have many limitations. Thus, there must be plans to mobilise and use forces and vehicles appropriately and effectively in specific situations. On grasping the “four on-premise motto”, units proactively advise party committees and authorities to mobilise and requisition vehicles, equipment, and materials of non-military businesses, department, and units, which aims to bring into play all resources of levels and branches in response to emergencies. Specifically, to assist fishermen to operate at sea and keep their minds at their work, contributing to assertion and protection of Viet Nam’s sovereignty over waters and islands, the People’s Army keeps part of its forces and equipment as standbys and directly conducts search and rescue in waters. Accordingly, the Navy and Coast Guard must well prepare their vessels, crafts, and aircraft for undertaking search and rescue at sea and on islands and DK1 platforms as well as towing fishing vessels and cargo ships encountering technical problems at sea. The Border Protection Soldiers must maintain communications with fishermen in order to instruct vessels to sail out of the way of storms. The Air Defence – Air Force and the 18th Aviation Corps must be ready for using aircraft of all kinds, especially the helicopters, to timely evacuate patients from offshore islands and DK1 platforms to the mainland.

In addition to careful preparation in terms of forces, vehicles, and plans, departments, units, and localities should attach more importance to education and propagation in order to make cadres and soldiers well aware of laws, especially the Law on Civil Protection passed by the 15th National Assembly on June 20, 2023; equip cadres and soldiers with fundamental knowledge about civil protection, disaster prevention and response, and search and resuce; cultivate their sense of responsibility and willpower to be ready to cope with difficulty and risk. Military units nationwide are equipped with many modern, multipurpose tools. Cadres and soldiers undergo basic training, are well-disciplined, and show remarkable endurance. Close, unified command and control are maintained from the MND to units at the grassroots level. These are huge advantages. To further leverage their core role in this sphere, in the coming time, departments and units are to step up reform to improve quality and effectiveness of education and propagation. Of note, it is necessary to improve soldiers’ knowledge of civil protection, disaster prevention and response, and search and rescue; popularise knowldege, skills, and experience of communities; propagandise military units’ civil protection activity, disaster prevention and response, search and rescue, and other activities through flexibly application of propagation forms such as banners and pictures. They are to cooperate with news agencies to promote propagation about civil protection, natual disaster prevention and control, and search and rescue should emergencies occur in their areas; carry out activities in response to the National Week for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, thereby enabling party committees, commanders at all echelons, cadres, and soldiers clearly define this as the military’s “combat mission in peacetime”.

Departments and units need to pay attention to preliminary review and summation in order to draw lessons learnt and timely praise and reward collective and individuals with excellent achievements in civil protection, natural disaster prevention and control, and search and rescue. They are requested to cooperate with functional agencies of relevant ministries and branches to propose the National Program for Studying, Applying, and Mobilising Scientific, Technological Resources in Response to Earthquakes and Tsunamis. Departments and units must pay due regard to material, spiritual life of cadres and soldiers, which helps to foster their belief, responsibility, solidarity, and determination to overcome all hardships; enable them to proactively work with local party committees, authorities, and people to realise this vital task timely and effectively, contributing to the rapid, sustainable development of the country.

Lieutenant General DOAN THAI DUC, Director General, Department of Search and Rescue