From that initial foundation, the country’s natural disaster prevention and control system has been step-by-step built and perfected, becoming a “shield” to protect the lives, property, and socio-economic development achievements of the people.

In Điện Biên, in recent years, weather developments have become increasingly abnormal. The transition phase from La Niña to El Niño has led to the appearance of many extreme weather patterns with greater intensity and higher frequency. Prolonged severe and damaging cold spells, early heatwaves, thunderstorms, tornadoes, lightning, hailstorms, localized heavy rains, flash floods, and landslides have occurred in many localities, causing heavy losses in lives and property.

Just from the end of 2025 to the early months of 2026, the province recorded numerous widespread severe and damaging cold spells, prolonged hot weather with temperatures reaching nearly 39°C, and many thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hailstorms that seriously affected agricultural production and people’s lives. Rice fields in their harvest period were devastated by hail, crops suffered heavy damage, and many infrastructure works were impacted by landslides and heavy rain. Natural disasters have left severe consequences, becoming a clear warning about the increasingly fierce nature of climate change. Disasters in 2025 claimed the lives of many residents, leaving numerous residential areas isolated, houses damaged, and traffic paralyzed. Each loss and damage is a profound lesson on the requirement to improve forecasting and warning capacities as well as proactive response capabilities from the grassroots level.

In the fight against natural disasters, forecasting and early warnings play an exceptionally important role. Reality shows that when hydro-meteorological information is provided in a timely manner, local authorities gain more time to deploy response plans, and residents can proactively protect their lives and property, minimizing damage to the lowest possible level.

Over the past years, the Điện Biên provincial Hydro-Meteorological Station has step-by-step modernized its observation system, applying technology to natural disaster forecasting and warning work. The system of meteorological and hydrological stations, weather radars, and automatic rain gauges, along with the integration of many advanced forecasting models, has helped improve the accuracy of specialized bulletins. Data is continuously updated in real time, creating an important basis for the early identification of natural disaster risks.

Since the beginning of the year, hundreds of weather forecast and warning bulletins have been issued, and many dangerous phenomena such as thunderstorms, tornadoes, lightning, hailstorms, flash floods, and landslides have been warned of early. Especially, the application of digital technology, information transmission through network environments, and the grassroots-level communication system have helped deliver warning information to the people faster and more widely, particularly in remote, isolated, and high-risk disaster areas.

However, no matter how modern the technology is, it can hardly eliminate risks completely without proactivity from each level, sector, and individual. Natural disasters today no longer follow familiar patterns but appear with high uncertainty, greater intensity, and a wider scope of impact. This requires natural disaster prevention and control work to shift strongly from a responsive mindset to a proactive prevention mindset.

Each locality needs to review its natural disaster prevention and control plans to suit reality, consolidate grassroots-level shock forces, improve the quality of disaster response drills, and step up dissemination on prevention skills for the public. Functional sectors need to continue investing in observation systems, promote digital transformation, and effectively exploit hydro-meteorological data to serve guidance and administration.

More importantly than all is building an awareness of proactive prevention within the community. When each citizen knows how to follow warning information, proactively protects property, and complies with instructions from functional agencies, resilience against natural disasters will be enhanced.

The 2026 rainy and flood season is forecast to continue harboring many adverse factors with the risk of heavy rains, flash floods, landslides, prolonged hot weather, and other extreme weather phenomena. In this context, proactive forecasting, early warnings, and thorough preparation of response plans are the keys to minimizing damage.

Natural disasters are objective factors, but losses can be completely reduced if the entire political system and all citizens act drastically and proactively from early on and from afar. This is also a practical way to protect the peaceful lives of the people and maintain the foundation for sustainable development under increasingly volatile and unpredictable climate conditions.