An assessment of awareness and preparedness of people against coastal disaster in Viet Nam

Abstract

    With long coastal line and located along the Pacific coast, Vietnam suffers from a number of typhoons each year, which can obviously generate important storm surges. Also, in the context of many tsunamies occurred recently causing severe damages to many countries raises concerns about the risk of tsunami in the East Sea area and especially in Vietnam. Because of those concerns that besides making a disaster warning, it is also necessary to set up prevention plan and evacuation plan in case of emergency to minimize the loss of human and property. In this paper, the authors concentrated in the degree of awareness and disaster preparedness of people living along the coast in Central Vietnam and the Mekong Delta, and also the efficiency of prevention activities that were and are deloyed by effort of local government. Results of the survey indicate that the level of awareness of the people is quite high, however, there still exists many gaps in preparedness activities.