Steps taken to protect Vietnam's mountainous regions from landslides

Vietnam News: Six provinces will set up pilot landslide warning systems in several mountainous regions. The provinces to benefit from these new programmes, including Ha Giang, Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Lai Chau, Hoa Binh and Nghe An provinces, will set up assessment and warning systems for landslide risks.

This is part of a larger project, involving 37 mountainous provinces nation-wide, which was approved by the Prime Minister. The aim of the project is to build a database and mapping scheme that would facilitate actions to minimise damages which could occur from related natural disasters.

This collection of data was meant to build an information system to combine geological, topoligical and other environmental factors to identify mountainous areas that could be at risk for such events. Priority will be placed on more concentrated residential areas.

Provinces estimated to have a higher risk of landslides include 17 in mountainous areas, 13 in the central mountainous areas, five the Central Highlands and two in southern provinces.

The scheme will be implemented in the period from 2012 to 2020. The first phase will be carried out between 2012 and 2015. This will involve investigation, assessment and zoning for areas prone to landslides in the north to the Central Midlands....

The Vua Mount (or Emperor Mount), highest in the Ba Vì mountain range. Shot by Khương Việt Hà, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license