A representative from the UNDP hands over a ’safe’ house to a family in Quảng Ngãi Province. 77 houses have been handed over to poor people living in flood affected areas in the province so far. — Photo courtesy UNDP |
QUẢNG NGÃI — The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in co-operation with the central Quảng Ngãi Province, has handed over 40 ‘safe’ houses to poor people living in flood and storm vulnerable communes in the province.
These houses, which were built and designed with the participation of local residents, aim to support local people construct structurally-sound houses that could prevent them from storm and flood damage.
The ‘safe’ house programme has completed and handed over 77 houses to the poor people living in the province since early 2018, and it’s expected that 300 houses will be completed for local residents this year.
According to the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, 400 houses in the province were damaged during the storm and flood season last year, and thousands of houses were flooded by Typhoon Damrey in 2017. In March, the UNDP and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in partnership with the Việt Nam Red Cross Society, also launched the Damrey housing recovery and rehabilitation project in supporting the building of 300 resilient houses in Khánh Hòa, Phú Yên and Quảng Nam.
Typhoon Damrey, which was the twelfth to hit Việt Nam last year, was the strongest in 2017. It battered some of the poorest communities of the south-central coastal region. More than 130,000 homes were damaged, of which over 3,500 were destroyed. Dozens of displaced families have had to live in temporary and unsafe shelters. — VNS