THANH HÓA — The People’s Committee of central Thanh Hóa Province has asked Quan Hóa District’s People’s Committee to ensure sufficient food and shelters and help people whose houses were swept away in the recent flash floods and landslides.

Chairman of the committee Nguyễn Đình Xứng yesterday visited flood-stricken areas in Quan Hóa District, one of the worst hit areas of the province.

Xứng asked the district’s committee to build new houses for affected people. The construction of the new houses must be completed before October 15.

He led the delegation to visit Trung Sơn Primary School. The school was seriously damaged and covered with mud due to the flash floods.

Teachers and students had to study in a room of Trung Sơn Hydropower Plant’s Management Board.

Xứng asked the district’s authority to allocate land funds to build a new school for students.

Traffic from Hồi Xuân Town to Trung Sơn and Trung Thành communes has been cleared. However, the roads to the villages are still isolated, leading to difficulties in supplying food for people in flood-hit areas.

Xứng told the Department of Transport to mobilise excavators and trucks to clear eroded areas.

The district People’s Committee was requested to work with monitoring units to be on duty around the clock at landslide hotspots.

The committee was ordered to co-ordinate with the health sector to perform disinfection and environmental sanitation to fight epidemic outbreaks.

Up to now, flash floods have caused damage worth more than VNĐ137 billion ($5.8 million) to people in Quan Hóa District.

At present, four communes are still facing power shortage.

The district has provided affected households 10kg of rice and VNĐ1 million ($43.4).

Reports from the provincial Steering Committee on Natural Disaster Prevention and Control showed that Thanh Hóa had suffered the highest number of casualties, with nine people dead and three missing.

As many as 277 houses were swept away, while more than 230 were partly damaged and up to 12,550 were submerged. — VNS