Kien Giang (VNS/VNA) - The dailylives of some 500 households have been disrupted and 600ha of protective forestlost due to landslides on the nearly 70km seashore of the Mekong Delta’s KienGiang Province in recent years, with climate change blamed for the landslides.

The district of An Minh is believed to have suffered most from the landslides,with nearly 37km of shore damaged.

Vo Thi Kim Loan, of An Minh District’s Van Khanh Commune, said her house waslocated in a place surrounded by mangrove forest five years ago. However, thelandslides have seriously damaged the forest.

“It puts my house at risk of being\ affected by landslides,” she said.

This forced her to pay dozens of millions of đồng to reinforce the sea dykenear her house to prevent landslides each year, she said.

Nguyen Thanh Dien, a forest protector in Van Khanh Commune’s Kim Quy B Villagesaid that ten years ago, the mangrove forest protected all aqua farms, but inrecent years, landslides had reduced the area of mangrove forest in the villagefrom more 40,000sq.m to 4,000sq.m.

Shrimp and fish raised in aqua farms were often swept away by high tidesbecause there was no protective forest, he said.

Vo Minh Le, secretary of the district’s Party Committee said, “Seriouslandslides are strongly impacting the daily lives of local residents.”

“If we don’t devise a workable solution for the situation, the protectiveforest will totally disappear in the next two years,” he said.

Administration’s efforts

Nguyen Van Tam, director of the provincial Agriculture and Rural DevelopmentDepartment said the agricultural sector had worked with localities to makeplans to fix the situation.

Evacuating local residents in areas facing serious landslides was a short-termsolution, while in the long-term, the sea-dyke system should be re-built andthe mangrove forest recovered to prevent landslides, he said.

Previously, the provincial People’s Committee ordered the agricultural sectorto work with the People’s Committee of An Minh District to give solutions forthe situation.

The provincial People’s Committee also asked district authorities to createmudflats along the 4-km seashore to reduce the impacts of high waves, worth 120billion VND (5.2 million USD).

The provincial committee said it sent a report to the National SteeringCommittee on Natural Disasters Prevention and Control to ask for financialsupport to deal with the situation.

Huynh Dang Khoa, deputy director of Project Management Division under theagricultural department said the province was finishing procedures to soonimplement a project of Mekong Delta Integrated Climate Resilience andSustainable Livelihoods in 2018.

The project, worth 736 billion VND (32.3 million USD), would buildinfrastructure, prevent seashore erosion and support people in aqua farming intwo districts of An Bien and An Minh. - VNA