BANGKOK (AlertNet) – The Red Cross is appealing for 1.1 million Swiss francs ($1.24 million) to assist 42,000 people in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta who have been affected by severe floods, the organisation announced on Thursday.
The money would go towards providing cash, relief items and emergency health, promoting safe water and hygiene and helping the survivors recover their houses and income for the next 12 months, the Red Cross said.
The floods, said to be the worst in more than a decade, began in September. Since then, 73 people have died – 63 of them children – and almost 600,000 people have been affected in seven provinces, the Red Cross said, citing government figures.
“The most vulnerable are the families who are both poor and landless. These families have typically no land, few savings and survive on daily wages by offering their labour or fishing locally,” Bhupinder Tomar, the Viet Nam representative for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said in a statement.
“We will provide 1,500 of these families with cash grants for boats and fishing nets to provide them with a sustainable source of income,” he added.
According to the Red Cross, unlike the floods Vietnam’s central region faces every year, these have been a vslow onset and large areas remain inundated.
Conditions are expected to remain grim for at least two to three months and needs remain severe, the statement said.
Heavy rains over the weekend have also wreaked havoc in other parts of Vietnam, triggering flooding and landslides in the central provinces of Vietnam and displacing thousands of people, the United Nations’ latest update said.
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