Practice close to the situation

At Battalion 6, Regiment 335 (Division 324), after the alarm bell rang repeatedly, Company 9 mobilized forces to deploy the search and rescue mission. In a very short time since the order was given, 100% of the Company's troops were present, their equipment was fully packed, according to regulations. Materials for dike protection and landslide prevention such as sacks, support poles, bamboo baskets, wooden mallets, stone cages... were prepared.

Major Chu Huu Thong, Battalion Commander, affirmed: “In training, we always closely follow reality such as: Operating at night, maneuvering on difficult and complex terrain, stormy weather, and at the same time fostering skills to handle situations such as moving people and property out of danger zones, swimming to rescue drowning people, first aid for drowning people, repairing and reinforcing bridges and roads...”.

Officers and soldiers of Engineering Brigade 414 (Military Region 4) participate in sports activities on storm and flood prevention, search and rescue.

We arrived at the 414th Engineer Brigade when it was raining heavily, but the river crossing rescue training session led by Lieutenant Colonel Cao Thanh Tam, Battalion Commander of Battalion 4, still went on as usual. The choice of the maneuver route from the unit to the riverbank was also based on reality, with steep, bumpy terrain, slippery red soil divided by small streams, making it difficult to move.

However, the soldiers still quickly moved the canoe to the mobile position; practiced assembling the engine, deploying equipment such as poles, ropes, life buoys, etc. In less than 10 minutes, the canoe arrived at the rescue position. At this time, each officer and soldier threw out life buoys, ropes, poles, and jumped into the water to practice rescue swimming; performed first aid for drowning people, etc. Everything happened smoothly and quickly.

Learning about the activities of the Response to Disaster Prevention and Control at the Thanh Hoa Provincial Military Command, Colonel Le Van Dien, Commander of the Provincial Military Command, said: Given the unpredictable weather in recent years, in addition to improving the capacity to perform the Response to Disaster Prevention and Control tasks for the forces, in 2022, we advised the locality to ensure a budget of nearly 13 billion VND to carry out training, drills, exercises and material procurement tasks (of which, material procurement alone is 8 billion VND). After a year of implementation, the roles and responsibilities of the forces have been promoted well; ready to successfully complete the tasks of civil defense and Response to Disaster Prevention and Control in the area.

From real life lessons

Based on the terrain characteristics and the actual developments of natural disasters occurring every year, the Party Committee and the Military Region 4 Command always lead and direct agencies and units to regularly develop, adjust and supplement plans and solutions for natural disasters; plans to ensure communication; plans for Party work and political work; plans to ensure logistics and techniques from the Military Region level to grassroots units, ready to participate in handling situations occurring in the unit and in the area.

Studying the reality in agencies and units, from permanent units to local units, we found that, along with investment and procurement, units always focus on doing a good job of preserving and maintaining vehicles, facilities, and equipment, avoiding damage or loss, ensuring savings, quality, and efficiency.

Officers and soldiers of Engineering Brigade 414 (Military Region 4) participate in sports activities on storm and flood prevention, search and rescue.

Colonel Pham Van Dung, Deputy Chief of Staff of Military Region 4, said: "The Military Region regularly coordinates well with localities to effectively promote the "4 on-site" motto, especially in mobilizing local forces and means, combined with mobilizing forces and means in neighboring areas and forces and means of higher levels to promptly search and rescue, contributing to helping people soon stabilize their lives and restore production. Every year, advising and directing the mobilization of tens of thousands of regular troops, militia and self-defense forces and means to participate in preventing and fighting natural disasters, fires, explosions, forest fires, helping people overcome the consequences of natural disasters... is recognized and highly appreciated by local Party committees, authorities and people."

Up to this point in 2023, Military Region 4 has directed the Military Commands of Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces to advise local Party committees and authorities to direct and organize civil defense drills, with the topic of the Civil Defense - Disaster Prevention and Search and Rescue Command to organize command and response to disasters of fire, explosion, collapse of structures, and toxic chemicals in the province in combination with provincial defense area drills.

Along with that, the Military Region 4 Command directed the training and development of boat and ship drivers, and directed units and localities to conduct training to consolidate and supplement basic knowledge on natural disaster prevention and control and search and rescue, focusing on training on methods of moving people and materials out of flooded areas; methods of reinforcing dikes with on-site materials; directed 4-5 districts to conduct drills on flood and storm prevention and control - search and rescue (the Military Region 4 Command directly directed 2-3 key districts on natural disasters and floods).

Lieutenant General Ha Tho Binh, Commander of Military Region 4, said: The implementation of the task of disaster response of the Military Region 4's armed forces in recent years has left many valuable lessons, which are: To effectively implement the "4 on-site" motto, there must be forces that understand the area and forces that build works and projects to provide information to search and rescue forces.

In particular, it is necessary to rely on the experience of local people, promote local strengths, and combine forces and support means from above. Local forces must be flexible and calm in handling natural disasters and search and rescue incidents. This is a very important content. If done well, promptly and effectively, it will facilitate the implementation of the next task. In particular, the organization and command must be tight, unified, and strictly follow the principles and regulations in performing tasks with a firm grasp, assessment, and correct assessment of the situation, planning, organizing military stations, guarding, etc. and must have synchronous coordination with local forces to promote the combined strength of the entire political system and the entire population in the response to natural disasters.

Those practical lessons are important in guiding and orienting the improvement of the capacity of disaster response and response of agencies and units of Military Region 4. From there, it is necessary to determine the ideology, build the spirit, train skills, and improve the ability to complete tasks of each officer, soldier and agency, unit, contributing to minimizing damage caused by incidents and natural disasters.

Article and photos: HOANG KHANH TRINH