Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Vietnam: Country of coastline, mountains ... and natural disasters

This article was in the most recent CECI e-newletter. http://publication.ceci.ca/en/bulletin/omni/archive/2009/06/30/13803.aspx

In the small Southeast Asian country of Vietnam, whose dragon-like shape is said to bring good luck, natural disasters are a part of daily life. Since time immemorial, peasants who fail to make their homes proof against an upcoming monsoon are left to rebuild what the high water destroys. But these days the skies seem to be taking it out on the poorest people on the planet. They are the first wave of climate refugees.

Quang Binh

In October 2007, Typhoon Lekima devastated the central coastal provinces of Vietnam. The residents of Quang Binh province, a 50-km-wide strip of land between Laos and the South China Sea, were particularly hard hit. One year later, hundreds of Vietnamese are still living in temporary shelters and in fear of the next storm.

In cooperation with local Vietnamese governments and several international organizations, CECI took part in a reconstruction project, its first contribution in Quang Binh. In total, some 80 houses are once again or soon to be functional.

Geneviève Gignac visited Quang Trach district in the northern part of the province, where the small commune of Quang Trung is slowly recovering from Lekima.

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Nghe An
A little to the north, the mountainous province of Nghe An is also struggling from the aftereffects of the storm. In the Quy Hop ethnic district, CECI helped out with the cleanup.

In addition to rebuilding dikes and ridding the fields of stones and silt, our organization worked on reinforcing a basic irrigation system.

Geneviève Gignac visited the commune of Chau Dinh and its famous water-powered mills, whose simple elegance harks back to another time.



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