Switzerland was among the first countries to announce their aid packages to Việt Nam after Typhoon Yagi. Việt Nam News’ reporter Lê Hương interviewed Swiss ambassador Thomas Gass about why they understand the pain in the country.

Swiss Ambassador Thomas Gass. — VNS Photo Lê Hương

Could you brief me about the aid package that Switzerland’s government will send to Việt Nam soon to ease the consequences caused by Typhoon Yagi?

Please allow me first to just express my condolences and really my deep compassion of Switzerland, of our government and of our people for what you have been experiencing, what Việt Nam has been experiencing here.

We really feel the hurt, but we also feel the courage that you have and the resilience for rebuilding.

And at this moment, Switzerland wants to stand shoulder-by-shoulder with you to respond to your needs and help you to rebuild your lives and your communities.

You know, I was here when the storm hit and we saw the rain and the wind, how it just broke the trees and it reminded us of some of the natural disasters we had in Switzerland this same summer.

Over the last six months, we have seen mudslides. We have seen our houses and villages completely flooded.

We have also had losses of life in the Swiss mountains, where in the summer we had really terrible floods and rains.

And so when I saw what happened here, it reminded us that this is something that we also experienced and that we all can experience, especially in these mountainous countries.

So the Swiss government decided to allocate one million Swiss francs, that's about US$1.2 million, to support the Vietnamese Government in its efforts to rebuild these communities and to come to help the vulnerable people. The most vulnerable people.

There will also be already some non-food items, so some tents, for example, family tents, 300 family tents.

There's going to be hygiene kits, cooking sets for families, I think about 800 cooking sets and then two big water distribution systems that can bring water to 10,000 people.

So there's a big shipment on its way already, and they will arrive in the early morning on September 16.

Will you send some experts here to help Vietnamese authorities? Could you tell me about them?

The experts are hydrologists and people who have expertise in securing very mountainous and very dangerous terrain.

And how can you rebuild the villages, and how can you secure them against landslides? How can you protect your population? How can you put the shelter, the temporary, but then also the long-term shelter?

So for the population to be safe, especially in this moment when things are not so stable yet.

Have you heard about any Swiss citizens stuck in flooded areas?

Actually, we have not and I'm actually not so surprised because the Government has been extremely efficient in bringing to safety all the tourists that were, for example, in Hạ Long Bay in Cát Bà, but also in the mountainous areas in Lào Cai.

As a Swiss Ambassador, I really want to express my gratitude to the Government of Việt Nam for what it has done to put tourists and foreigners into safe places.

And I know that many, many Vietnamese were also evacuated, so we have not had any casualties.

What do you think about Việt Nam’s capabilities to prevent natural disasters and overcome the consequences of superstorms?

So definitely there was a strong readiness.

And as I said, I mean, you cannot (be completely ready), nature is very powerful and so you cannot completely prevent the impacts of such disasters.

But I really believe that Việt Nam has been outstanding in the way that it has taken the population out of harm's way to the extent possible.

Now, as I explained, in Switzerland, we have a lot of experience with natural disasters in the mountains, it's just too powerful when you have landslides and rivers coming out of their banks and running through villages. There’s not much we can do to prevent that.

So hopefully now with these experts that are here, we can perhaps look at the short and medium term together with the Vietnamese Government to see whether something can be done also to further improve the disaster readiness. — VNS