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Typhoons and floods in Vietnam

Measures for disaster reduction in contexts of climate change
James Lewis 10 October 2007

Reports from Vietnam of typhoon Lekima which struck northern and central provinces on 3 October 2007 killing at least 77 people, are another reminder that Vietnam is a country most seriously affected by typhoons and floods.

Vietnam is one of ten countries having a larger share of population within the global low elevation coastal zone (LECZ), that is, within 100 kilometres of a coastline and at or below ten metres in elevation and, therefore, at high risk to typhoons and floods. Proportional risk to natural hazards is at its highest amongst island states because of their often low elevation but also because of their proportionally high length of coastline to land area. Percentages of island populations within the global low elevation coastal zone are that of the Maldives at 100 per cent and of the Bahamas at 88 per cent.

Vietnam and Bangladesh are the two continental countries having the largest percentages of their populations living within the zone, that of Vietnam being the higher at 53 per cent. Of a national total of about 83 million, therefore, 44 million Vietnamese people live at risk to sea level rise and its associated hazards, in heavily populated coastal lowlands and delta regions. Bangladesh is more often the country named in reference to flooding and cyclones, the hazards associated with sea level rise; appropriately so in terms of the number of population at risk but, in terms of percentages of national population, Vietnam is the nation at greatest proportional risk. 
Vietnam forms the eastward extent of the Indochinese peninsular, it’s borders with China, Laos and Cambodia totalling 3,000 km, “a very long border compared to the country’s surface area” matched by its coastline to the east of 3,444 km, a factor contributing to its low elevation coastal region of considerable length and exposure to the South China / Eastern Sea.

Three monsoons, from north-east Asia, south Asia and south-west Asia, meet over Vietnam creating, in their turn, cold winter drought, summer heat, heavy rains and marked differences in climate from north to south of the country. Sea temperatures are similarly variable on a coastline that extends between latitudes 21° and 9°N. “There have been typhoons in which the waves at Halong Bay (near Hanoi) reached 30 metres, and foam even covered Long Chau lighthouse, 50 metres above sea level.”
Further south, however: “It is on the shores of central Vietnam’s flat coastal alluvial plains that the waves break highest and are most numerous.” Slowly flowing rivers and streams skirt their way round constantly shifting sand dunes to find their way to the sea, trees having been planted in attempts to restrain and fix the dunes, on a coastline repeatedly inset by estuaries, coves, backwaters and lagoons of up to 70 kilometres in length. Principal road routes and railways thread their way between undulating higher ground to the west and the sea to the east. Inflow of the sea is tempered by a system of dykes, dams and lakes, to regularise the flow of sea water and to counteract stagnation in the dry season.

Centrally located on Vietnam’s “Green Corridor” and complex coastline, Thua Thien Hué province, for example, has an overall area of 5,009 square kilometres, a population of 1,136,200, an average population density of 225 per sq km and direct exposure to the sea. Population has increased by12.25 per cent since 1995, only marginally less than Vietnam’s national population growth during the same period. The province has eight rural districts, in addition to the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site of Hué City on the Huong (perfume) River.

The northern and southern regions of Vietnam extend further inland, have larger areas of fertile and accessible land, and concentrations of population around the capital Ho Chi Minh City on the Mekong delta in the south, and the principal city and regional capital of Hanoi in the north. Central Vietnam is only 50-100 km wide with a directly exposed 500 km (approx) length of coast; exposure to the sea is disproportionately high to land area. Although population is less in number, population density is similar to most rural provinces and higher than that of some.

For the whole of Vietnam and for a 26 year period, 1975-2001, 13,275 deaths are recorded from typhoons, windstorms, floods and droughts. During a closely similar 26 year period, 1980 to 2006, and in only three selected coastal provinces of Vietnam’s central region, almost 2000 people have been killed by windstorms, typhoons and floods (see Table). Sixty percent of this total, and 84 percent of the number of people made homeless, have been caused by typhoons and windstorms.
In recent years, attention has turned to the disproportional exposure and loss in this extended coastal region of Vietnam. Building on earlier Vietnam experience with the United Nations Centre for Human Settlement (UNHabitat), Development Workshop France (DWF) has, since 1999, promoted the preventive strengthening of existing houses in Central Vietnam (with initial support from the Canadian International Development Agency / CIDA and, since 2003, from the European Commission Directorate for Humanitarian Aid / ECHO). Preventive strengthening is based on rapid training of artisans and community leaders in the application of ten key generic principles of typhoon and flood resistant domestic design and construction. DWF also promotes awareness raising events in schools and in public places using media ranging from theatre to boat races and traditional community communication methods by television, to get across the message that prevention is easy, cheap and durable. Although every house has different needs, the average cost of strengthening is about 25% of the house value; access to credit and financial encouragement is part of the package.

In 1999, community leaders thought the idea of strengthening houses was laughable. In October 2006, the hundreds of buildings that had been strengthened under the DWF programme withstood the impact of Typhoon Xangsane that destroyed 20,000 other houses and unroofed 250,000 more in the three central provinces. The provincial authorities issued an edict throughout the population, stating that the DWF ten key principles had to be applied to houses and public buildings to avoid further damage from future disasters. Community leaders and families alike are now convinced that investing in prevention is cheaper than waiting for a storm to come and paying the high price of reconstruction.

This kind of programme is well justified as one small but significant measure against recurrent losses, as are numerous other current post-disaster initiatives. But deaths, homelessness and economic losses are set to continue, and to increase overall, in current and forthcoming contexts of climate change and rising sea levels. They will increase inexorably where there has been comparatively little preventive strategy, which suggests that repetitive and costly post-disaster assistance might not always be possible. A further 58,000 houses were damaged or destroyed by typhoon Lekima with estimated damages of US$ 130 million.

Typhoons and floods do not select, they are random in their incidence and impacts. Housing and its occupants are not the only victims; workshops, docksides, fishing fleets, farms and agriculture all need simultaneous protection. Instead of apparent series of piecemeal post-event responses, an overall developmental concept would comprise multidisciplinary participation within a single framework for the entire Vietnam low elevation coastal zone: reconstruction, construction and maintenance of dykes for flood resistance, mangrove plantation and other vegetation for wave reduction, cyclone shelters and killas for population and animal security, communications systems for promulgation of warnings - and construction strengthening projects - would be a part of the same development programme: “investing in prevention is cheaper than waiting for a storm to come and paying the high price of reconstruction”.

Why is it that such programmes are in such short supply ? Climate change and sea level rise were recognised during the 1980s and should have heralded then the need for such action. But pre-disaster has never held the initiative nor the resources; post-disaster, after people have been killed and dwellings destroyed, is more dramatic, attracts greater publicity - and therefore more kudos and more money. It is also so much more cruel.

Eminently successful and praiseworthy projects, such as domestic construction strengthening in central Vietnam, show the way and demonstrate the success that professional quality and popular participation can generate when given the opportunity. It is time for a wider perspective.

TABLE

Vietnam central eastern coast
Recorded typhoons, windstorms and floods 1980-2006       
Provinces of Binh Tri Thien, Thua Thien Hue, Quang Binh and Quang Tri

YEAR	TYPE	NAME	# KILLED		# INJURED		# HOMELESS
			Typhoon	Flood	Typhoon	Flood	Typhoon	Flood
1980	Flood			94				628,000
1985	Typhoon	Cecil	798		257		225,000
1989	Typhoon	Brian	104		762
1990	Typhoon	Becky	19		108
1991	Typhoon	Fred	17		16		455,905
1991	Windstorm		251		200
1992	Typhoon	Angela	17		12		980
1992	Flood			1
1995	Flood			253
1996	Flood			60
1999	Flood			127		164		45,265
2000	Typhoon	Kaemi	17		4
2001	Typhoon	Lingling	20		83		13,100
2001	Typhoon	Usagi	3		3		10,000
2004	Typhoon	Muifa	56
2005	Flood			17
2006	Typhoon	Xangsane	71		525		98,680
TOTALS			1373	552	1970	164	803,665	673,265

(Source: EM-DAT)

Also at 
http://www.tiempocyberclimate.org/newswatch/feature071101.htmhttp://www.radixonline.org/latest.htm           
http://www.vietnamdisasterprevention.org/        

References will be supplied on request to datum@gn.apc.org   

 Bangladesh

James LewisAmbulances for Bangladesh
January 2009A microcosm of technical assistance

Ninety-five Land Rover ambulances, inclusive of spare parts and at a total cost of €2 million, had been donated, in 1989, to Bangladesh as part of a “post-flood rehabilitation project”. This account concerns the ambulances component of an evaluation of this project, which was undertaken together with that of a “primary schools cum cyclone shelter project” by the same donor.

The two projects were in extreme regions of Bangladesh; that of post-flood rehabilitation based upon Rajshahi and Bogra in the north-west, involved rural primary schools and rural hospitals on 57 sites with up to 160 kilometres between them, and cyclone shelters based upon Chittagong and Cox’s Bazaar in the south-east and on 20 sites. Each site had to be visited. Rajshahi and Cox’s Bazaar are about 500 kilometres apart - were it possible to travel in the straight line reputedly flown by crows. The total time allocated for the combined evaluation mission was six weeks (though six weeks had been the time for each evaluation before they were combined !).

Ambulances were the subject of one-sentence of the four-page terms of reference (tors) for the evaluation of the post-flood rehabilitation project: “Make a review of the 95 ambulances provided by the project including the present location/utilisation/condition of the vehicles (local consultants will assist this work)”.

Two extensive and wide-ranging evaluations in six weeks by an evaluation team of three, could not have reviewed the condition and utilisation of 95 ambulances scattered throughout the entirety of Bangladesh without assistance - for which applicants were to be identified, interviewed, selected, appointed, monitored and paid, all as part of the evaluation project.

The ambulance review was undertaken by Prokalpa Upodeshta who, due to their teaching activity, had contact with students and former students throughout Bangladesh who were willing to be deployed to locate and to assess as many vehicles as was possible.

Less than half of the ambulances, 40 out of 95, were located and only two thirds of those were operating effectively.

In most cases, exterior bodywork was in good condition but many had damaged seats due to rough use. In one half of those found, at least one of two supplied stretchers was missing, a serious condition for vehicles often unable to travel all the distance to rural patients; other medical equipment also was missing. Engines in most cases were in good condition but maintenance was expected to become a problem as spare parts had not been received.

Bangladeshi authorities allocated eighteen thousand spare parts in 474 different categories, from front bumpers to rear lamps and from bleed screws to nipple grease, to four distribution centres of Dhaka, Rajshahi, Chittagong and Khulna. No spare parts were recorded as having been received by any of the ambulance stations located for the review.

Twenty-one months after receipt, one ambulance had travelled more than 106,000 kms, but the majority had travelled less than 20,000 kms; there were delays of up to 18 months between vehicles’ acquisition, registration and first use, one ambulance having yet to make its first journey; wide variations were found between vehicles’ proposed and actual location and, after commencing operations, two ambulances had been out of service for up to 6 months. The charge made to patients for their use of an ambulance was considered excessive for rural people, precluding ambulance use for many and limiting vehicles’ utilisation and effectiveness.

In two cases, a river separated the location of ambulances from the community they were intended to serve, with no bridge or vehicle ferry. Eighty-two per cent of all journeys made had been for medical emergencies, with 11 per cent for “official use”, and 7 per cent for “other” uses. Ambulances were reported as having been used by local officials for their own purposes, by political leaders, and to have been appropriated by local gangs. In two cases, ambulances had been used exclusively for journeys by doctors and, in several cases, to transport a visiting prime minister.

Spare parts that had been required had been purchased locally. How parts had come to be available for purchase, how their stockists had come by them, and how much had been paid and to whom, were questions not requiring investigation by this review.

The evaluation concluded that, even when employed for their intended purpose, ambulances have only a limited usefulness. The majority of rural communities in Bangladesh are remote and accessed by narrow track or pathway too narrow for vehicles of any kind. In the wet season, even four-wheel-drive Land Rovers have difficulty in deep mud.

Most severe cases in hospitals visited appeared to have resulted from lesser problems not treated earlier, such as worms or nutritional problems leading to liver failure. The provision of ambulances could have been organised to help people reach hospital sooner and earlier in the onset of their illness, rather than more quickly much later. Free ambulance transportation would assist such an objective and the provision of technical training for mechanics and drivers would ensure the reliable availability of their vehicles where, due to lack of mechanical competence, routine mechanical servicing was not practiced.

The evaluation concluded that an appraisal of the need of ambulances, and of their anticipated utilisation, could have been usefully made before their provision. For their added effectiveness, large organisations and large budgets require realistic attention over time to seemingly minor details.

To this image, Bangladeshi photographer Syed Ashfaqueuddin Priom has applied the title “I used to be an Ambulance!”. He writes:

“I`ve been seeing it like this for almost 10 years (and counting). It was used for a very short time and the sad fact is that, after it was dismantled probably no attempt was taken to repair it. Moreover, I wonder if any attempt has ever been taken to move this wreck outside of the hospital area."

Priom notes that the photograph was taken on 5 June 2008 at Lakshimipur, situated a few kilometres east of the Meghna estuary, 30 kilometres north-west of Noakhali and 100 kilometres south of Dhaka. The Ambulance Review Report and its survey data contain no record of an ambulance being located at Lakshimipur. That this former Land Rover ambulance, however, had been abandoned for more than ten years after its period of use, strongly suggests it to have been one of the 95 that were the subject of this evaluation of May 1995.

Priom: http://www.flickr.com/...

¹Golam Mmohiuddin & Shabbir Ahmed Ambulance Review Report Prokalpa Upodeshta, Dhaka. May 1995.

2009	Ambulances for Bangladesh: A microcosm of technical assistance www.datum-international.eu
2008	The artist as witness: Zainul Abedin and the Bengal Famine of 1943 Submitted to Radix for publication
1999	Cyclone-resistant domestic construction in Bangladesh (with M P Chisholm) in Implementing Hazard-resistant Housing (pp 29-38) (Hodgson, R L P; Salek, M S; Choudhury, J R: Eds) Proceedings of the First International Housing and Hazards Workshop BUET Dhaka 1996 Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology /  Housing & Hazards Group, University of Exeter January
1999	Bangladesh Cyclone Shelter Preparatory Project: Water for toilets and drinking in cyclone shelters Paper 9 in Lessons Learned from NGO Experiences in the Water and Sanitation Sector (Smout, Ian; Parry-Jones, Sarah: Eds) WELL (Water & Environmental Health in Developing Countries) University of Loughborough www.lboro.ac.uk/well/lessons/contents.htm
1997	Development, vulnerability and disaster reduction: Bangladesh cyclone shelter projects and their implications Chapter 4 Reconstruction After Disaster: Issues and Practices (pp45-56) ... (Awotona, Adenrele: Ed) Ashgate
1996	References on Cyclone Shelters in Bangladesh (dual-purpose design, construction, integration and management) Newsletter European Network of Bangladesh Studies, University of Bath Issue No 9 pp20-31 April
1995	REPORT Evaluation: Post-flood Rehabilitation II Project (North Western Bangladesh) and Mid-term Review: Primary Schools cum Cyclone Shelter Project (South Eastern Bangladesh) Combined mission; field visits from Dhaka, inclusive of Bogra, Chokeria, Cox's Bazaar, Kutubdia, Noakhali, Rajshahi and Sandwip European Commission DG1 Datum International
1993	REPORT Cyclone Shelter Project, Bangladesh: Preparatory Study Preparation of Terms of Reference: Field mission to Dhaka, Kutubdia, Chokeria, Patuakhali and Kalapari European Commission/World Bank IDA Datum International
1992	REPORT Primary Schools cum Cyclone Shelters, Bangladesh: Preliminary Study site assessments, design and construction criteria, design proposals: Field mission to Dhaka, Moheshkhali and Kutubdia European Commission, Brussels Datum International
1991	REPORT Economic Development Planning for Recurrent Natural Disasters: Floods and Cyclones in Bangladesh: Report of a preliminary fact-finding mission with recommendations United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Geneva Datum International October
	Vietnam
2007	Typhoons and floods in Vietnam: Measures for disaster reduction in contexts of climate change http://www.tiempocyberclimate.org/newswatch/feature071101.htm http://www.radixonline.org/latest.htm
2007	Disaster Reduction Measures for Typhoons and Floods (condensed version of the Vietnam article above) http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/tiempo/newswatch/feature071101.htm

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Bangladesh

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