The central coastal city of Danang will hold a major tsunami drill in October this year, with nearly 3,000 participants.
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| The central coastal city of Danang will hold a major tsunami drill in October this year, with nearly 3,000 participants |
The municipal People’s Committee on August 3 organised a meeting with local agencies to begin planning for the rehearsal.
The drill will be implemented in two phases. The first stage includes the submission of measures to cope with a possible tsunami threat and rescue activities, with the second phase including the actual drill.
The drill is scheduled to take place from 7.30-11am on October 7 and will include helicopters, ships, canoes and hundreds of ambulances, cars and motorbikes.
The drill will use a scenario based on a tsunami appearing in the sea to the west of the Philippines following an 8.6-8.8 richer scale earthquake, some 2,000 km off the Vietnamese coast. According to the drill, the tsunami would hit Danang three hours later, with a wave of up to six metres in height.
A bulletin will be issued to tsunami warning stations and coastal households, pupils at some primary schools and those on the beach will be moved to higher ground. Destruction of ships, traffic accidents or traffic jams will also be part of the incidents anticipated in the rehearsal.
Military-run telecom group Viettel is operating ten tsunami-warning towers in Danang as part of a pilot scheme.
The stations, the first of their kind in Vietnam, are expected to provide a 30 minute warning to people living in the city.
An additional 100 tsunami warning stations will be established in the central region in the coming years. This is part of a project to create a nationwide tsunami warning system.
