HÀ NỘI — Some 5,000 children and adults in Bắc Bình and Hàm Thuận Bắc districts, afflicted by the severe drought in Bình Thuận Province, will receive support from World Vision.

The organisation will address the urgent water, sanitation and hygiene needs in these areas.

The relief package worth US$150,000, entrusted to World Vision by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), will be distributed from June until the end of July 2016, offering 20,000 bottles of drinking water and 1,250 plastic water tanks to the needy.

Each family will receive sixteen 20l  bottles, estimated to be a 40-day supply, and one 1,000-litre water tank.

“Our immediate aim is to contribute to containing the diseases arising from the lack of adequate water supply for human use,” Lê Văn Dương, World Vision’s National Coordinator of Humanitarian & Emergency Affairs in Việt Nam, said.

“We’re seeking additional funding opportunities to leverage our support for people in need of food aid, hygienic water supply facilities and early economic recovery in the Bình Thuận and Đắk Nông provinces,” Dương said.

Previously, World Vision was part of the initial response, using its own resources of $80,000, assisting more than 5,000 residents in the Hàm Thuận Bắc and Bắc Bình districts since early June 2016.

From mid-June until July, World Vision will also provide food aid and domestic water supplies to nearly 2,000 people who have faced crop failures in Bắc Bình District.

The prolonged drought and saline intrusion as a consequence of El Nino in the Mekong Delta, South Central Coastal and Central Highland regions has led to serious groundwater depletion in water-scarce districts. Some two million people are suffering an acute water shortage, including over 1 million women and 520,000 children, according to World Vision. — VNS