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After the floods - the Mekong Delta

Following the worst-flooding in 30 years, affecting eight million people, the Red Cross in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos is fully engaged in rehabilitation activities on behalf of thousands of families who lost everything when the Mekong River burst its banks in spectacular fashion over a four month period from mid-July last year.
There will be little respite for these families before the next monsoon season so time is of the essence as rehabilitation activities get underway. Food security, disaster preparedness and safe housing are the uppermost concerns of the National Societies in these countries.

Vietnam Red Cross is leading the way with an imaginative mix of safe housing and disaster preparedness to avoid a repetition of last year's flood season when over 400 people drowned. "At the height of the floods, twenty children were drowning each day" said Professor Nguyen Trong Nhan, President of the Vietnam Red Cross. "We had to do something fast."

At the time, Vietnam Red Cross responded with a distribution of more than 5,000 life-jackets and 4,000 boats to those families most at risk. A plan is now on the drawing board to build 100 schools in remote flood-prone areas which can also double as refuges. This is being done with four million Swiss francs from the Australian government. Each school will be built on raised platforms, and function also as storm-resistant refuges capable of sheltering between 60 to 100 families each.

The schools should be ready by June, just in time for the monsoon season. According to the International Federation's Head of Delegation in Vietnam, John Geoghegan, the Red Cross disaster preparedness programme throughout the Mekong Delta provinces will link into the school-building programme with the provision of rescue equipment in the schools, training and an active Red Cross volunteer recruitment campaign in the surrounding communities.

Regionally, the International Federation is looking at the possibility of encouraging replication of the successful Vietnam Red Cross safe-house construction programme in neighbouring countries.

"With these houses, we are trying to change the mindset of the population on how to deal with disasters. We are also trying to convince authorities to help people find ways - through grants or loans, for example - to purchase these homes", explains Peter Walker, Head of the Federation's Regional Delegation in Bangkok. The new design is not the traditional bamboo one, but built in steel and concrete. More than 7,000 of these have been built in the central provinces of Vietnam and the programme was a great success. "In the last floods, none of these new houses were destroyed", adds Peter Walker.

Back in Hanoi, Geoghegan, a qualified engineer, takes up the story. "We are now planning to build 3,000 more of these houses but with a design difference that will suit the Mekong river Delta provinces. They will be on a raised platform foundation. At the moment we are experimenting with different models but we aim to have all these houses built by the end of May."

In addition to the building programme, the Vietnam Red Cross is continuing support to 25,000 families with distributions of 1,500 tons of rice in the coming months.

Similarly, in Cambodia where the Red Cross has helped over 200,000 families affected by floods, rehabilitation activities are continuing including food and clothing distributions and there is also a strong emphasis on minimising the spread of infectious diseases through the rehabilitation of water points and sanitation facilities.

In Laos, where Typhoon Keimi also added to the havoc caused by the rain-swollen Mekong, some 7,000 families are being provided with food and other support to ensure they survive the lean period until the upcoming harvest.