Vietnam joined with other countries to discuss measures to cope with cross-border natural disasters at the 11th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Disaster Management (AMMDM), which was organized in northern Quang Ninh province on October 12.

The meeting gathered together eight ministers, four deputy ministers, and over 140 other delegates who are leaders and officials in disaster prevention and control agencies in ten ASEAN member countries, the ASEAN Secretariat, the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (the AHA Center), development partners of the group (China, the Republic of Korea, and Japan), and some of the international organizations in the region.

Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Hoang Hiep said Southeast Asia is among the regions hardest-hit by climate change and is forecast to face an increase in natural disasters in terms of frequency and intensity.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has forecast that, by 2050, tropical storms could cause damage to 182,000 houses in Cambodia, the Philippines and Vietnam, up 60 per cent in comparison with the annual damage caused by the storms at present.

A number of meetings and conferences are being held during the six-day gathering, including an annual meeting of the 43rd ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management (ACDM), ACDM+ meetings with China, the Republic of Korea, and Japan, a meeting of the Governing Board of the AHA Center, the fourth ASEAN Disaster Resilience Forum, the 11th AMMDM, and the AMMDM+ meetings.

The 11th AMMDM is expected to adopt the Vietnam-initiated Ha Long Declaration on Early Action in ASEAN Disaster Management, which focuses on risk information, forecasts and early warning systems, planning, operations and implementation, and leveraging pre-arranged financial resources for emergency response.