Date: 30 Jul 2010

BANGKOK, 30 July 2010 (IRIN) - Funding shortages are forcing NGOs to cut operations in the Ayeyarwady Delta, as the Myanmar government takes on oversight for recovery efforts two years after Cyclone Nargis on 1 August.

“The need is enormous,” said Prem Shukla, programme director in Myanmar for Plan International [http://www.plan-international.org]. “Nargis is forgotten though.”

Plan, which started work in Myanmar only after Nargis, will wrap up its work in June 2011, while Save the Children [http://www.savethechildren.org] and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) [http://www.iom.int] are cutting their operations.

Problems of food security, lack of shelter and livelihoods still plague people in the Nargis-affected region, according to the Tripartite Core Group (TCG) report [http://aseanhtf.org/periodicreview4_report.html] released on 27 July.

The report found that 27 percent of families were food-insecure and livelihoods were still not back to pre-cyclone levels. More than half of those surveyed said housing was their most important concern. The total funding gap [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89418] for all sectors in the post-Nargis recovery effort is US$510 million, according to the Recovery Coordination Centre, responsible for tracking Nargis aid.

The TCG - comprising the government, Southeast Asian nations and the UN - was formed to build trust [http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89856] between Myanmar and the international aid community weeks after Cyclone Nargis killed 140,000 and destroyed 752,299 homes in May 2008.

It completes its mandate on 31 July, leaving the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement to oversee recovery efforts. After two years of relief work, NGOs expect the transition to go smoothly, but worry that projects may stall without donor support.

“We need additional funding to continue the important recovery work that is still not finished,” said Andrew Kirkwood from Save the Children, which has one of the largest presences in the region. “We have reduced the number of offices in the delta from 14 to eight and the number of our staff in the Delta has reduced from 1,200 to 600 over the last six months.”

IOM closed three of its delta shelter programmes in July and called the situation a “tragedy”.

“Despite the lack of basic shelter for up to one million inhabitants in the delta, urgent and desperate calls for additional funding have gone for the most part unheeded, resulting in the downscaling of many shelter programmes in the delta,” said Nelson Bosch, IOM recovery coordinator in Myanmar.

Bracing for the worst

Potential natural disasters worry groups such as World Vision, [http://www.worldvision.org] which is now shifting to long-term projects. The organization reports a return to normality in areas of the Nargis-affected region where it is working - the towns of Bogale, Pyapon, Hainggyi, Dedaye and Kyaiklatt - but nonetheless, another weather-related crisis could be disastrous.

“This year’s long dry season was accompanied by very high temperatures, which means the humanitarian community may need to be prepared for a possible water and food security crisis in the coming year,” said Win Zin Oo, humanitarian emergency affairs director at World Vision Myanmar.

But despite the shortages, the biggest resource is the people involved. “The water is there, the fish are in the water and the coconut trees are there,” said Shukla, who has overseen Plan’s construction of 43 schools and 31 early childhood development centres in the delta. “But the seeds were gone. First we needed to bridge the gap, and now we need to turn it over to the community.”

MEKONG DELTA, Vietnam (AlertNet) - Dressed in faded blue shorts and a white top that has seen better days, Nguyen Van Loi is hard at work in the torrential downpour. He’s digging the earth with a shovel to plant vegetables on his 8,000-square-metre cabbage and onion farm.

With no shoes and only a small farmer’s hat to protect him, the 52-year-old is eager not to lose the opportunity the rain is bringing him.

“Rain is good for the vegetables and it has been drier than normal this year,” Nguyen told AlertNet, standing beside his farm in Vinh Long province on the opposite side of the river from Can Tho, the biggest city in the Mekong Delta. “We’ve only had a little rain so far.”

The weather has been behaving erratically, the veteran farmer added. “Twenty years ago, we didn’t get rain from this direction this month. Now it comes from this direction.”

Another farmer, who has been farming for over 40 years, concurred.

Nguyen Van Sau, walking back to his vegetable and rice farm in Vinh Long district said: “The sun and the rain used to have rules. It was six months of sun and six months of rain. Now there are no rules.”

He is not sure what can be done to turn the situation around but hope losses from the farm will not mount as the weather becomes less consistent.

TOO MUCH WATER

Can Tho and Vinh Long, facing each other on opposing banks of Hau River, lie in the fertile Mekong Delta in the south of Vietnam. Can Tho is a centre of trade for the delta, acting as a gateway to both Ho Chi Minh city and other delta provinces as well as to Cambodia.

Filled with waterways and ditches, agriculture and aquaculture are the lifeline in both places, which experts say are under threat from changes in weather patterns brought about by climate change.

Sea level rise caused by global warming and subsequent flooding is the biggest concern for the area, where people live precariously close to the water. Local news reports cite authorities saying the delta’s average temperatures have increased 0.5 degrees Celsius in the last 30 years.

In addition, a 2007 World Bank report said Vietnam will see the most serious impacts from sea level rise in East Asia, and that the Mekong and Red River deltas, home to a large number of people and economic activity, will be most affected.

Delta residents are used to living with floods which is usually beneficial because they bring fertile alluvium deposited across the region for agriculture and clean up the dirt, Nguyen Tri Zung of Challenge to Change, which works with communities facing threats from climate change, told AlertNet.

“But now the extreme weather is expected to bring extreme highs and lows of flooding that harm the livelihoods. This can lead to vector-borne diseases which threatens people,” he said.

According to government studies , compared to 1980-1990 levels, Vietnam could see a sea level rise of between 65cm and 100 cm by the end of 21st century in a worst-case scenario, inundating many parts of the Mekong Delta.

DRY WEATHER SPELLS TROUBLE TOO

The changing weather isn’t only expected to bring floods. Farmers in the delta struggled with severe drought earlier this year as the Mekong River fell to its lowest levels in decades. Lack of freshwater threatened rice and other crops, made worse by seawater encroaching the fields.

Activists, politicians and farmers have blamed dams in the upper Mekong in China for the drought but both experts and locals agree the weather patterns are changing. Many say the dry season is coming earlier and staying longer while others believe rainfall has increased during monsoon. And the effects can be equally disastrous.

“The threats are salinity intrusion, erosion along the river banks and bad quality of water,” aid worker Nguyen, whose organisation is helping residents of Can Tho to use water efficiently, said.

“People are living on the surface of the water and they use the water for living and other activities. But when the water moves slowly or is stagnant because the level of the river is low, sea water comes in and this affects the salinity. It also brings opportunistic bacteria and diseases as consequence of contaminated water.” he said.

Experts also say tropical storms, which have rarely affected the Mekong, could be another result of climate change. This worries an orchard owner on a small island a short boat ride away from Can Tho.

The 64-year-old, whose son and grandchildren help run the three-hectare fruit farm, said they have been raising their embankment every year to prevent flooding.

“I don’t know what will happen or what can be done, but every year, the flooding is getting higher,” he said.

Here are details of three major current floods:

PAKISTAN

Flash and riverine floods caused by an unusually severe monsoon season have hit Punjab and Baluchistan provinces.

At least 50 people have been killed and around 50,000 are affected in the worst-hit district of Barkhan, officials said.

Pakistan’s monsoon season runs between July and September, meaning that there is still potential for another month of severe rain.

The Meteorological Department predicted another monsoon at the end of July which could hamper relief efforts.

Local authorities say they worry inadequate assistance for now homeless people could aid disease to break out. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already reported four deaths from water-borne diseases in two places, with hundreds more cases in other affected districts, according to the United Nations.

IRIN, the U.N. news agency, says many people are sleeping in the open as they abandon their homes to move to higher ground.

The United Nations said in a humanitarian update that the WHO and Pakistan’s Department of Health were coordinating the response.

Pakistan says it will give out 1200 tents, 800 blankets and 2400 plastic mats. It also says it has deployed teams that can meet food and health needs for the next three months.

Saudi Arabia has pledged $100 million, nearly half of which has been spent, the U.N. said. This will include 25,000 all-weather tents.

IRIN said many residents feared the relief effort was inadequate.

“The rain is continuing and water is surrounding houses. People are now really scared,” resident Amjad Baloch told IRIN from Kohlu on 24 July. “It has been raining more or less continually for two days here. Very little is being done to help people, many of whom have lost homes.”

SOUTHERN CHINA

Nearly 1,000 people have been killed and some 400 are missing after the worst torrential rain and storms in southern China in 30 years, according to state media and the International Federation of Red Cross and Crescent Societies (IFRC).

In all 120 million people have had their lives disrupted in some way.

Flooding and landslides have been the biggest problem in the region since storms started in May, and the IFRC says that this is set to continue as China prepares to face the rest of the typhoon season.

Reports from local media in central China said another 37 people were killed and 19 reported missing after a 150-metre-long village bridge collapsed under the pressure of a flood-swollen river on July 24.

The IFRC says that the Chinese government estimates that over 7 million hectares of farmland and 645,000 houses have been destroyed by flooding.

“People have to cross their fields by boat to retrieve belongings from their homes”, said Qinghui Gu, IFRC’s disaster management coordinator. “Many were taken by surprise by the intensity and speed of the flooding.”

State media reported on Wednesday that nearly 4 million have had their water supplies cut after over 1,000 barrels of explosive chemicals were washed, by flood water, into a major river.

IFRC say that the Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric project in the world, has protected many in southwest China from flooding (but not landslides) this year.

One of the dam’s main purposes is to protect people against the yearly floods along the Yangtze plains.

However, a state-run paper on July 23 quoted officials as saying that the dam could not cope with flood waters rushing through it at more than 122,000 cubic metres a second. This year the speed of flood waters passing the dam peaked at 70,000 cubic metres a second, but future floods could be more severe as a result of climate change, it said.

China has responded to fears that this year’s floods would be as destructive as the 1998 Yangtze floods, in which 4,000 people died, saying that it was now better prepared.

Last week the government issued warnings ahead of tropical storm Chanthu. The IFRC said these warnings meant people stayed inside and there were fewer casualties.

Meanwhile, the IFRC reports that the Red Cross is carrying out extensive relief work across affected provinces. The Red Cross has distributed emergency supplies such as tents, quilts, rice and drinking water in these areas.

SUDAN

Heavy rains hit many regions of the Sudan in July causing severe flooding that has displaced more than 10,000 people and killed at least 16, as well as destroying harvests and livestock, according to officials and charities working in the region.

On July 20 the United Nations reported that 13 people were killed and 11 were missing in one of the worst-hit areas, when floodwater swept down an empty river bed near Agig village in Sudan’s eastern Red Sea state after a week of heavy rain.

The latest report on July 26 by the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) says humanitarian teams had witnessed more severe flooding in Akobo Country that had killed two people and destroyed 133 households and five schools.

Aid agencies said in a report compiled by the World Food Programme (WFP) and others that there was an urgent need for tents, sleeping material, food and clean drinking water for those displaced by flooding.

The report also stated that roads needed better drainage and culverts for water to pass from one side to the other.

The report warned that the flooding could continue for several more weeks.

“It is expected that these floods will continue until early September based on the frequency of the rains,” it predicted, “which means there will be more displacement and ruining of the harvest.”

Despite the heavy rains the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that Sudan still faces the long-term threat of drought after a poor rainy season in 2009.

“The rainy season is cyclical and we don’t know what the levels of rains are going to be. But the drought issue remains a long-term problem,” an OCHA spokesman said.

*** This map from the Dartmouth Flood Observatory shows the extent of flooding around the world ***

* No cause offered for documented climate change

WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) - Melting glaciers, more humid air and eight other key indicators show that global warming is undeniable, scientists said on Wednesday, citing a new comprehensive review of the last decade of climate data.

Without addressing why this is happening, the researchers said there was no doubt that every decade on Earth since the 1980s has been hotter than the previous one, and that the planet has been warming for the last half-century.

This confirms the findings of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which reported in 2007 with 90 percent certainty that climate change is occurring. The IPCC also said that human activities contribute to this phenomenon.

The new report was released after U.S. Senate Democrats delayed any possible legislation to curb climate change until September at the earliest. Prospects for U.S. climate change legislation this year are considered slim.

Released by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as “The 2009 State of the Climate Report,” the new report draws on the work of 303 scientists from 48 countries, including data from last year.

The 10 key planet-wide indicators of a warming climate identified by the report are:

—Higher temperatures over land

—Shrinking glaciers

The seven indicators expected to rise in a warming world rose over the last decade, the report said; the three indicators expected to decline did so over that same period.

With an almost daily flood of data on climate change, Peter Thorne of the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites in Asheville, North Carolina, saw the need for a comprehensive look at the information to pick the most obvious signs of planetary warming.

“These are indicators from the top of the atmosphere to the bottom of the ocean that we would expect to be changing in a warming world,” Thorne said at a telephone briefing for reporters.

“Each indicator is changing as we would expect if the world truly were warming,” he said. “Not a single analysis disagrees that the global climate is changing. The bottom line conclusion that the world’s been warming is simply undeniable.”

The entire report can be seen online at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2009.php

The report is being published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Here, at the tip of a beach on the beautiful Son Tra peninsula, just a 15-minute drive from the centre of Vietnam’s booming city of Danang, people are used to natural disasters.

In September, typhoon Ketsana brought the biggest floods in decades with people saying ships appeared to be simply tossed onshore. In 2006 another powerful typhoon, Xangsane, devastated the area.

So when the Rockefeller Foundation, one of America’s oldest private charities, was looking to fund small-scale projects as part of its $50 million climate change adaptation work in Asian cities, the fishermen knew what to ask for.

They wanted the winch to make it easier to drag their boats safely ashore on the wheeled trolleys when a storm strikes, said Nguyen Tri Dzung of Challenge to Change, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) working with communities facing problems from climate change.

Rockefeller funded half of the $50,000 cost which includes training the community, said the Foundation’s managing director in Asia, Ashvin Dayal. The rest came from city authorities and local people.

Danang, Vietnam’s third largest city with close to a million people, is one of three cities in the country chosen for Rockefeller’s climate work, which was launched in 2009 in four countries. More projects are in the pipeline.

Another pilot project, also costing around $50,000, involves restoring coastal forests and setting up a disaster warning system for 450 fishing boats, which were equipped with radios to receive weather forecasts and notify each other of incoming storms.

Dayal says these are very small projects, but for the vulnerable fishermen in Danang they could help protect their livelihood for the near future.

DEVELOPMENT COMPLICATES MATTERS

Vietnam, with a coastline over 3,200 km long, has been cited as one of the countries that will be most affected by the changing climate which scientists say could lead to sea level rises and more intense storms.

According to the government, the average temperature rose 0.5 to 0.7 degrees Celsius over the past 50 years while the sea level rose about 20 cm. The U.N’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said a one metre rise in sea level would affect almost one in four people in Vietnam and submerge 40,000 square kilometres of the country’s land.

Danang is already vulnerable to storm surges and poor communities like the fishermen stand to lose the most from climate change.

“Not only are they seeing more disasters but the land they can work and live on is also getting smaller because of urbanisation, government policies and sea intrusion,” the NGO worker Nguyen told AlertNet.

The city is growing relentlessly, with new golf courses and five-star resorts competing with ordinary homes for space beside the South China Sea.

“Before, people lived on their land but the government has moved them to other places to make way for urbanisation development projects,” Nguyen said. “This presents another challenge if the poor are not well prepared for their livelihood options in the new place.”

IMPACT BEING FELT NOW

Evidence may still be largely anecdotal but many villagers in Vietnam are convinced that the normal pattern of things is changing, “like the date when the rains start, cold periods getting longer and flooding occurring for shorter periods,” said Guillaume Chantry of Development Workshop France.

His organisation is hoping to get Rockefeller funding for a project to help households run by women where the husband is away or dead, or has left. The women, raising children and short of money, usually do manual labour on building sites, Chantry said.

“By providing the technical and management training needed to run a small business, the main idea is to support women to strengthen or rebuild houses in poor urban areas of Danang and select some of them to become ‘construction entrepreneurs’ to organise work for other families and women,” Chantry said.

Rockefeller is considering the project. Dayal said the Foundation would fund projects that helped improve the situation today, with climate change already having an effect, and also helped build an understanding of how that situation would evolve.

“For example, storm-resistant housing is a need now, not just something hypothetical that might emerge as a priority 30 years from now. And it’s something that we know is going to become more of a need,” he said.

Tropical storm Chanthu has left 10 dead and four injured when it caused heavy rains, flash floods and landslides in northern mountain provinces, according to the National Steering Committee on Flood and Storm Control. Ha Giang was the hardest hit province, with 7 locals reported dead, followed by Cao Bang (2) and Lao Cai (1). The storm, which was downgraded to a low pressure system on July 22, also caused huge damage to houses, roads, bridges and rice and subsidiary crops in these provinces.

In Yen Bai alone, 132 houses were flooded and 22 others were severely damaged. Heavy downpour also submerged 18ha of rice and subsidiary crops and 5ha of fishponds.

In Bac Giang province, 10 communes were completely isolated and more than 44,100ha of rice and subsidiary crops were submerged.

The National Steering Committee on Flood and Storm Control has asked the northern mountain provinces to keep a close watch on further developments of heavy rains and evacuate people living in the low-lying areas.

As rain continues to pour down and floodwaters in major rivers keep rising, the committee has asked the designated provinces to mobilise stand-by forces to work around the clock to protect the dyke system.

Chanthu was the second storm hitting the East Sea this year. The first, Conson, killed one when it made landfall last weekend.

Hôm qua, 22/7/2010, tại hai huyện Ia Pa, Kông Chro, được sự đồng ý của chính quyền địa phương, Hội Chữ thập đỏ tỉnh Gia Lai phối hợp với Hội Chữ thập đỏ huyện tổ chức lễ khởi công xây dựng nhà Chữ thập đỏ theo chương trình hỗ trợ phục hồi nhà chống bão thông qua cấp tiền mặt có điều kiện theo lời kêu gọi MDRVN006.

Tham dự buổi lễ khởi công có đại diện lãnh đạo UBND hai huyện, đại diện Hiệp hội Chữ thập đỏ - Trăng lưỡi liềm đỏ quốc tế, Trung ương Hội Chữ thập đỏ Việt Nam, đại diện tổ chức DWF, lãnh đạo Hội Chữ thập đỏ tỉnh Gia Lai, các ban, ngành, đoàn thể, UBND các xã hưởng lợi và toàn thể các hộ hưởng lợi.

Tại buổi lễ, đồng chí Ksor H’Nhan – Chủ tịch Hội Chữ thập đỏ Gia Lai đã giới thiệu mục đích và ý nghĩa của việc xây nhà an toàn chống bão, mặc dù con số còn khiêm tốn (50 căn nhà, mỗi căn trị giá 30 triệu đồng) nhưng đã góp phần hỗ trợ cho đồng bào bị ảnh hưởng thiên tai khắc phục kịp thời một phần thiên tai, yên tâm tăng gia sản xuất, nâng cao chất lượng cuộc sống.

Đại diện UBND các huyện đã gửi lời cảm ơn sâu sắc đến các cấp Hội Chữ thập đỏ và mong muốn các cấp hội cần quan tâm hơn nữa đối với đời sống của đồng bào trên địa bàn hai huyện nói riêng và tỉnh Gia Lai nói chung.

Ngày 23/07/2010 / Ngoc Điệp - Ban CTXH

The 27-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum meets in Hanoi on Friday, where a priority is improved cooperation in disaster relief by 2020, according to a draft action plan seen by AFP.

The forum gathers major powers including China and the United States but is driven by the 10-member ASEAN bloc, which has been criticised in the past for a lacklustre response to Southeast Asian natural disasters.

An initiative to improve relief was welcomed by the Asia-Pacific disaster chief of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Michael Annear.

But “these agreements need to then be taken to the country level and incorporated into national processes” to be effective, he added.

The forum’s statement aimed to “harmonise regional cooperation” over relief and strengthen civil-military coordination—for example by holding regular exercises—to enhance disaster responses over the next decade.

It also sets out plans to develop tools such as a “model legal arrangement for foreign military assistance”.

But such pledges could be deflecting attention from more complicated issues such as tensions over North Korea’s nuclear programme, according to Ian Storey, a fellow of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

He told AFP the forum “is moving toward more cooperation on less sensitive issues like humanitarian cooperation and disaster relief… because the other issues are just too difficult to deal with”.

The region is prone to earthquakes, storms and volcanic eruptions and is expected to be hard-hit by rising sea levels and extreme weather caused by climate change.

Experts have said environmental damage, shoddy urban planning, corruption and other man-made problems are magnifying the human cost of natural disasters almost every time they strike in Asia.

The latest calamity, Typhoon Conson, has left a death toll of 76 in the Philippines, two in China and one in Vietnam over the past week, with dozens more still missing and feared dead.

At a security conference last month in Singapore, top regional officials called for a more coordinated response to relief operations across Asia-Pacific nations.

Malaysian Defence Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi called for the establishment of centres focusing on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

His New Zealand counterpart, Wayne Mapp, agreed the region had “to move beyond talking about to actually doing something and having centres of excellence, probably regional based, would probably help”.

In May 2008, ASEAN was faulted for failing to pressure military-ruled Myanmar, a member of the bloc, to allow in international aid after Cyclone Nargis devastated the country’s south, leaving 138,000 dead or missing.

A group of officials from the UN and ASEAN were eventually allowed to coordinate aid with Myanmar’s government, which the bloc hailed as a successful example of its capability and unity.

AFP.

In Hai Phong, it wounded three people, levelled 97 houses, struck down thousand of trees and 19 electric posts.

Local authorities and Hai Phong Border Station mobilized 800 border soldiers and 50 canoes, ships and cars to help evacuate people from the storm-hit areas.

The police force took the initiative to patrol to ensure social order and protect the property of organizations and people in the city.

In Thai Binh, heavy rains are threatening the two important sections of the dyke in Thai Do commune, Thai Thuy district.

Thai Binh province is working closely with relevant agencies to repair the damage caused by the storm.

Irrigation companies are also making efforts to control rising flood water.

In the northern province of Quang Ninh, efforts to deal with the storm were harmed by power cuts caused by strong winds. 40 people on some ships and rafts anchoring near the shore of Ha Long Bay were saved by rescuers, according to the Quang Ninh Border Guard Command.

To ensure the safety of local people, the Quang Ninh provincial Department of Transportation banned people from crossing Bai Chay bridge by motorbike and bicycle.

ConSon storm also caused damage in other localities like Hanoi and neighbouring provinces.

According to the National Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Centre, the tropical storm has weakened to a low pressure system in on the Northwest mountain region.

Heavy rains will continue in the Northern and North Central provinces. Floods and landslides are likely to occur in many localities.

Relief aid for people in flood-hit areas
On July 17, the Vietnam Red Cross (VRC) collected a total of VND4.5 billion and prepared 6,000 packages of goods, 300 canvas tents and 4,000 boxes of water purifying tablets to support the people in areas stricken by tropical storm Conson.

The association also called for assistance from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and other organisations if necessary.

VRC chapters in provinces and cities, particularly in flood-hit areas mobilised all their forces and necessary facilities to assist people.

Quang Ninh, Thai Binh and Thanh Hoa provinces have prepared goods worth more than VND 500 million to help flood victims and inspected storm control facilities.

VRC chapters in Hai Phong and Nam Dinh collected VND1.3 million for relief aid to support the people affected by the storm.

Conson weakens into tropical depression
According to the National Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Centre, storm Conson weakened into tropical low pressure system after hitting Hai Phong and Thai Binh provinces on the evening of July 17.

On the early morning of July 18, the centre of the low pressure was situated at 21.4 0 N latitude and 105.4 0 E longitude, at the Red River Delta. The strongest winds near the low pressure centre reduced to category 6 (less than 39 km per hour)

The low pressure will move northwest at a speed of 15-20 km per hour in the next 12 hours and then continue to move deeper inland and weaken.

Due to the impact of low pressure circulation, there will be heavy rains and thunderstorm in northern provinces. Mountainous areas should take precautions against possible flash floods and landslides.

The weather has been severe for nearly a month. The heat wave and drought have had adverse socio-economic impacts, food production and people’s lives. Up to a hundred thousand hectares of newly-planted summer-autumn rice in central Viet Nam is under the threat of total loss due to drought.

This year’s weather has changed fiercely, although at times it was already erratic in previous years. Recent temperatures in some places have been the highest in 50 years. For example, central Nghe An Province’s Tuong Duong District and Ha Noi reached 42.7 degrees Celsius and 42.8 degrees Celsius, respectively.

The hot spell was caused by a strong Foehn wind in the low pressure area. Foehn winds are caused by a rapid subsidence of moisture in the air after crossing mountain ranges, where moisture condenses, leaving behind a severe, dry wind.

There is usually hot weather from March-May in the south and from May-July in the north. In previous years, there was typically a period of heavy rain after every northern hot spell. This year is different. This heat wave has already lasted more than three weeks, almost a month, with high temperatures ranging from 37 degrees Celsius to over 40 degrees Celsius.

I can confirm that this year’s scorching weather is the hottest in 50 years.

Would it be possible to minimise the losses that stem from the unusually hot weather if the National Hydro-meteorological Forecast Centre could provide accurate weather forecasts?

Countries with a developed hydro-meteorological forecasting industry warned people of global warming starting in 2009. Scientific workshops also believed 2009 and 2010 would be the hottest years in history.

In Viet Nam, though the issue of climate change has received attention from the Government, relevant agencies and some people, the country has yet to be able to provide a long term forecast.

The National Hydro-meteorological Forecast Centre can currently only release weather 24-36 hour weather reports. Such reports are insufficient.

Though there have been some pilot projects of models that would provide long term forecasts, they have only been sent to a few offices, such as the central Steering Committee for Floods and Storms Control, for reference only.

It seems that the international community and Viet Nam have yet to take drastic measures to mitigate climate change. What is the most important action needed?

Climate change has received a lot of attention from the international community.

In Viet Nam, the Government has appointed the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to develop a detailed climate change scenario. But the scenario has only touched upon key issues like the increase in temperature and a rise in sea water level.

However, people’s awareness and the responsibility being assumed by some sectors remain unsatisfactory. They are still illegally logging, destroying forests to build hydro-electricity plants, burying ponds and lakes to construct high-rise buildings and other harmful activities.

The number one requirement is the protection of river headwaters and the protection of forests. Another no less important matter is the improvement of accurate long-term weather forecasting.

Will central provinces have to deal with horrible floods after the current heat wave?

That’s right. It is the law of weather that floods will probably occur after a period of hot weather. The rainy season in central Viet Nam peaks between September and November. It can even last until December.

Hydro-meteorological forecast centres need to provide timely weather forecasts in these areas.

Many people are worrying that Ha Noi will suffer from heavy rains when this frightening heat wave ends. It would be worse if sudden downpours occurred while the capital celebrates the 1,000th anniversary of Thang Long-Ha Noi. What is your warning?

I personally think it will probably rain in October. But it is hard to pinpoint the exact days rain will fall and cause flooding. I am only kidding, but city authorities should pay attention because the drainage system has yet to be completed.

Typhoon Conson, which killed 39 in the Philippines and two in China, was downgraded to a tropical storm as it hit northern Vietnam late on Saturday.

In Vietnam, a person drowned while swimming in the northern province of Thanh Hoa and 11 people, including the six fishermen, were missing, the government said on Sunday.

A child also drowned when a barge capsized in the northern province of Quang Ninh, a local newspaper said in an online report (http://www.baoquangninh.com.vn).

Three naval ships arrived in an area near the Paracels in the South China Sea on Saturday night to search for the six fishermen after their boat sank while seeking shelter, state-run Voice of Vietnam radio said.

It said the army had also sent 3,500 soldiers to help evacuate people in coastal provinces and others will be moved from dangerous areas in four mountainous provinces due to the threat of flooding.

The region lies far from Vietnam’s Mekong Delta food basket in the south, which supplies 90 percent of rice for exports.

Vietnam Airlines said it would resume operations on Sunday and planned extra flights to help passengers from the 10 flights it cancelled on Saturday.

Responding to worries about flooding during the ten-day great anniversary of Hanoi (October 1-10), Thao explained: “Hanoi has had plan against flooding on these days. We can’t shoot clouds like Beijing or Moscow because it costs over $1 billion to prevent rain over three days. Rain is caused by God, so we can’t stop it.”

Hanoi has solved 66 out of 124 gridlock sites so far, he asserted, and he confirmed that blocking crossroads has helped prevent traffic jams.
He admitted that the measures are temporary and the city must implement long-term solutions, including construction of overhead monorail and metro systems. This year the city will kick-off construction of the Metro 1 and Cat Linh-Ha Dong routes.
Thao also cited the goal of population reduction in the city’s center from 1.2 million to 800,000.

On July 17, Hanoi Deputy Chair Dao Van Binh was dismissed. He was recently elected as Chair of Hanoi Fatherland Front Committee.

After the tsunami most disaster experts put mangrove forests on the list of “must-haves” for communities living along the coast; they bore the brunt of tidal waves, protecting people, animals, homes and livelihoods, and helped disperse the force of rushing water.

But the benefits of mangroves were soon caught up in a battle of studies. The main protagonists were researchers Jeff Vincent, from Duke University in the US, and Saudamini Das, from the University of Delhi in India, on one side, and a group from Australia, India and Guam on the other.

Das and Vincent studied villages hit by a cyclone in 1999 in the Indian coastal state of Orissa and were the first to show that mangroves could offer protection from certain types of disasters. Their work was published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Andrew Baird of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University in Australia, Ravi Bhalla and V. Srinivas of the Foundation for Ecological Research, Advocacy and Learning in India, and Alexander Kerr of the University of Guam, said: “It would be extremely dangerous to rely on tree planting alone to shield coastal communities in the event of future tsunami or storm surges, and doing so could lead to further tragedies.”

Middle-of-the road

Now, the first global assessment of mangroves in a decade has appeared, and it takes a middle-of-the road stand on the benefits of mangroves as a protective measure against storms and tidal surges.

“Mangroves are not a panacea; mangroves cannot provide much of a buffer against tidal waves which are more than 15 metres high,” acknowledged Mark Spalding, a marine ecologist at The Nature Conservancy, a UK-based NGO. “But that is not to say they do not act as a buffer - often it is the only thing communities have protecting them from the sea.”

Spalding is the lead author of the World Mangrove Atlas, which covers 123 countries and is billed as the most comprehensive assessment ever. He is enthusiastic about the role of mangroves in the unfolding impact of climate change. “It provides one of the best kinds of adaptation for coastal communities, who not only face more intense cyclones but sea-level rise.”

Like other trees, mangroves soak up harmful carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and store the carbon in the wood; when they die the carbon is trapped in the water-logged soil. “Unlike peatlands, [one of the most effective carbon stores of all ecosystems] you don’t face the threat of methane emissions,” Spalding noted.

Methane gas released from peat bogs in the northern third of the globe probably helped fuel the last major round of global warming, ending the last ice age between 11,000 and 12,000 years ago, a joint study by the University of California and the Russian Academy of Sciences concluded.

A UN Environment Programme assessment in 2009 found that worldwide, mangroves probably sequester carbon faster than terrestrial forests; the bad news is that mangroves are being lost three to four times faster than land-based forests, and about one-fifth of all mangroves have disappeared since 1980, according to the Atlas.

Restoring mangroves is also not always easy. Community-driven projects were often more effective, because “The big [internationally funded] projects got the species wrong,” Spalding said. The Philippines has made tremendous strides in improving mangrove coverage with new policies and projects driven by local government.

Many countries, such as Mexico, Belize, Tanzania and Mozambique, have established general legal protection for mangroves, controlling destructive activities by means of strict licensing systems.

The Atlas, published by Earthscan, is a joint project by the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), the International Society of Mangrove Ecosystems, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), UNESCO - Man and Biosphere (UNESCO-MAB), the UN University Institute for Water Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC).

* Power restored in Manila, minimal damage to crops (Updates death toll, adds power restored in Philippines)

BEIJING/MANILA, July 15 (Reuters) - Heavy rains and powerful winds battered East Asia on Thursday, pressing authorities to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Japan and putting China on alert for its worst floods in years.

In the Philippines, power was gradually restored to millions of homes in and around Manila after Typhoon Conson hit the capital harder than expected on Tuesday night. Officials raised the death toll in the Philippines to 37, with 42 missing.

Tropical Storm Risk downgraded the typhoon to a tropical storm on Thursday, but the Philippines’ weather bureau said it was expected to regain strength as it moved over the South China Sea and headed towards southern China and northern Vietnam.

Conson was due to hit land late on Friday, the Tropical Storm Risk website (http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com) said.

China’s Xinhua news agency said the storm would make landfall in Hainan island’s southern resort city of Sanya before moving into Guangdong and Guangxi, bringing heavy rain.

“Winds will gradually strengthen and it may increase in intensity to a typhoon,” the China Meteorological Administration said on its website (http://www.cma.gov.cn).

More than 24,000 fishing boats have taken shelter in harbours around Hainan and ferry services between the island the mainland will be stopped in the early evening, Xinhua said.

Typhoons and tropical storms regularly hit the Philippines, China, Taiwan and Japan in the second half of the year, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean or South China Sea before normally weakening over land.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency said local governments recommended that some 300,000 people be evacuated from their homes, as the Meteorological Agency forecast heavy rain from a separate weather system for the west and east of the country later on Thursday.

TV images showed some houses tilted after being hit by mudslides, swollen rivers and abandoned cars almost submerged in flooded streets. Footage also showed a rescue crew saving a man caught in a fallen tree on a fast-running river.

Authorities say at least two people have been killed.

“NO ROOM FOR OPTIMISM” IN CHINA

Rain across a large swathe of southern China has already killed almost 600 people this year, with more than 200 missing, causing damage worth 120.2 billion yuan ($17.75 billion), according to the latest government figures.

Xinhua news agency said that the most recent bout of flooding, in 10 southern provinces since July 1, at least 135 people had been killed, 41 were missing, more than 1.2 million people had to be relocated, and direct economic losses were estimated at 26 billion yuan.

Parts of China now faces their worst flooding since 1998, when thousands died, as rain continues to batter the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

“Although the current situation along the Yangtze River has yet to reach the danger level, it is definitely at a crucial point,” the China Daily quoted senior official Wang Jingquan as saying. “If heavy rain hits the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, coupled with the continuous rainfall in the middle and lower reaches, severe floods similar to that in 1998 will occur.

“There will be no room for optimism as the incoming Typhoon Conson will add to the grave situation in flood control.”

Yangtze floods 12 years ago killed more than 4,000 people and forced the evacuation of more than 18 million.

President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have ordered local governments to step up flood relief efforts and “stressed that people residing in areas under the threat of floods and typhoons must be relocated to safety in a timely manner”, the report said.

POWER RETURNS IN PHILIPPINES

Trains, planes and ferries returned to normal operations in the Philippines as Typhoon Conson tracked toward Hainan.

More than 8,000 people remained in temporary shelters in five cities and 47 towns on Luzon, the Philippines’ main island.

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines said about 84 percent of the projected 6,767 megawatts load for the entire Luzon grid had been restored, but ruled out any power shortage because the actual demand was only 6,029 megawatts.

Power distributor Manila Electric Company (Meralco)