HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam will spend nearly 2.4 trillion dong (79 million pounds) between now and 2010 to build dykes and relocate thousands of rice farmers because of heavy seasonal flooding in its fertile Mekong river delta, the government said.
The programme, approved early this week, would help 33,000families resettle in areas away from landslides and floods, thegovernment said in a statement on Wednesday.
About 20 percent of Vietnam's 86.5 million people live inthe Cuu Long River Delta, the Vietnamese name for the Mekongriver, which produces more than half of the country's paddyoutput and supplies more than 90 percent of its commercialrice.
Funding for the programme will come from the state budget,grants and soft loans from state-run Vietnam Development Bank.The funds would be used for building dykes as well asfoundations for new villages to ensure farmers' homes stayabove the Mekong floods' peak level in 2000, the statementsaid.
Floods arrive between August and November each year in theMekong delta, a large area of fertile soil in southern Vietnamwhere the Mekong river reaches the South China Sea aftertravelling more than 4,000 km (2,500 miles) from Tibet.
In 2000, the Mekong delta experienced the worst floods infour decades as waters rose to more than 5 metres, killingnearly 500 people, more than 300 of them children.
Early this month, the governments of Vietnam and Cambodiasaid rising Mekong floods may cause landslides and heavyflooding, but the seasonal floodwaters would also bringVietnam's southern farmers good crops of rice and fish.
(Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Valerie Lee)
