Thanh Nien News
14 April 2015
People in the Central Highlands and nearby provinces are facing the worst drought of the decade, struggling to find drinking water and watching their crops and cattle die.
But 400 kilometers to their north, three people drowned last month due to unusual floods as rainfall hit more than 500 millimeters, the highest in March since 1965.
“What’s going on?” a resident asked in a question sent to the environment minister during a televised Q&A program early this month.
“It’s climate change,” Minister Nguyen Minh Quang told national broadcaster Vietnam Television.
He said the impacts are becoming more extreme in Vietnam, one of the five most affected countries in the world, and the cost of that extremity will rise to 9 percent of GDP from the end of the century.
“It’s a terrible figure.”