Local residents in the mountainous district Muong Lat in the north-central province of Thanh Hoa carry people across the flooded river during the historic 2018 August floods.(Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The central region of Vietnam usually bears the brunt of tropicalstorms that lash the country each year.
For generations, thepeople in this region have learnt to co-exist with the devastating floods everyyear, but to foretell when these disasters will occur to prevent loss of humanlife and minimise economic damage is the responsibility of hydro-meteorologicalobservers, who have earned the title ‘flood watchers’.
However, for thenorth-central region, the most meaningful data is collected in remotemountainous areas like Lang Chang, Quan Hoa and Muong Lat districts in Thanh Hoaprovince, up the famous Ma River.
Amongst the 22 weatherstations in Thanh Hoa, the Muong Lat hydrometeorological station is consideredto have the “heaviest duty” – monitoring the slightest changes to the Ma River totell if there flooding or landslides are imminent.
Just recently, in themidst of the dry season with mild winds reaching just 20-28km/h, the section ofthe Ma River passing through Ten Tan commune became a raging beast that evokedmemories of epic past.
Observers at the Muong Latstation still needed to carry out at least eight measurements on the river aday, or even more if requested.
It could be said therole of the modern weather observer is far less epic, with their days mostlycharacterised by repeat routines, but there are still moments of danger thatcome as the rainy season hits.
The north central regionhas suffered from 19 forms of weather-related natural disasters over time, withthe most prevalent involving tropical storms, thunderstorms, floods and heavydownpours.
According to Le Xuan Tinh,head of the Muong Lat station, 2018 was the most difficult year for thestation’s workers, with spells of cold weather, tropical typhoons and heatwavescoming in succession.
Towards the end ofAugust last year, Thanh Hoa and Nghe An suffered the worst floods they’d seenin years, with alarms of widespread inundation and flash floods sounded at thehighest level.
Tinh said all five staffat the station were working round the clock and still dutifully collectingmeasurements to report to Thanh Hoa’s weather station, which were thentransmitted to the national weather agency.
By 7am on August 30, theroads in front of and behind the observatory had vanished under the floodwater.Heavy rain felled telecommunications lines, and both phone services andinternet connections were down throughout Muong Lat district.
Diep Huy Hoang, born in1990, the youngest and arguably, fittest member at the observatory, was chargedwith a special duty – walking through rain-lashed mountainous terrain to reachthe Lao border gate to ask the neighbouring country’s customs officials to senddata to Thanh Hoo province.
It took more than a dayfor the internet connection to be restored and to start transmitting again.
“It was really fortunate.If we had been offline for any longer, I doubt even Hoang would have hadenough stamina to make the journey,” Tinh said.
The Lang Chanh stationis an old and waterlogged one-storey building that has not been renovated sinceit was built in 1990.
“In 2012, when thefloods hit, the water reached nearly to the top of the station. Luckily, thestation had a small room on the roof so we moved all the equipment up there,but all our personal belongings were swept away as we didn’t have enough time tomove them,” said Nguyen Trung Kien, the station’s head.
Nguyen Van Luong,director of the North Central Meteorological Forecasting Agency, who has spent30 years in the job, said: “Anyone who chooses the meteorological profession isaware of the struggles they will face, especially those working at mountainousborder observatories."
For Luong, aftergraduating from the central meteorology college in Hanoi in 1985, he worked asan observer for 15 years at four stations in different rural districts in ThanhHoa before he was promoted to head of the north-central region.
“I have gone through alot, mostly struggles and difficult times. I always remind the stations’ staffthat no matter the hardships, they must always deliver complete and accuratedata on meteorological events and other environmental elements so they arenever neglectful or late because this duty is their responsibility and pride ofboth the observers and the stations,” Luong said.
The VietnameseGovernment, realising the importance of accurate and fast weather data toprevent human losses and economic damages in disaster-prone areas, has granteda significant budget to the forecasting sector, with the north-central regionbeing one of the priorities.
Since 2012, the regionhas received state-of-the-art equipment from overseas – including 49 raingauges from South Korea that use GPRS/GSM technology to ensure uninterrupteddata transmission, three automatic ocean observatories and 11 wind stations incoastal areas in addition to one weather radar and one weather satellitesystem.
Starting in 2017, in thenext phase of modernising forecasting facilities in Vietnam with financing fromthe World Bank, 82 automatic rainfall and water level gauges with Europeantechnologies were installed to replace the manual measuring system.
Aside from newequipment, the national weather agency has also attempted to mobilise fundingboth from domestic and foreign sources to improve the infrastructure at importantweather stations.
The Hoi Xuan station inQuan Hoa district was recently rebuilt to provide staff with a proper workingenvironment and better living quarters.
Nguyen Thi Hai Yen, 26,currently the youngest observer at the Hoi Xuan station, followed in herfather’s footsteps to become a ‘flood watcher’ in this poor remote area.
“I could hardly believethat my station was being rebuilt into this new modern facility. It reallyhelped consolidate our faith in the job and motivated us,” Yen said.
Similar to Hoi Xuan, thenew Muong Lat station sits atop a windy hill and this sprawling complex is“another level” above the derelict old building.
Head of the station, LeXuan Tinh, said it checked all the boxes and was just what weather serviceworkers needed to “stay dedicated to the job in this poor, remote area”.-VNS/VNA
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