According to Nguyen Lan Chau, Deputy Director of the Central Meteorological and Hydrological Forecast Center, the dry season of 2005-2006 is expected to experience more severe drought conditions compared to the dry season of 2004-2005, which was the most severe drought in the last 40 years.
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Will the dry season of 2005-2006 be more severe than the previous one? In the picture: Coffee plants withered due to drought during the dry season of 2004-2005 |
In the last 10 days of November, the water level of the Red River in Hanoi only reached 2.72 meters, nearly 1.5 meters lower than the average level for many years during this period and continues to decline.
Many stretches of the river in Hanoi are left completely dry, causing traffic activities on the largest river in the Northern Delta through Hanoi to come to a complete standstill.
According to Deputy Director Nguyen Lan Chau, the main cause of this situation is that this year, the flood peaks on rivers in the North are small and lower than the average level for many years by nearly 1 meter.
The flood peak on the Red River in Hanoi only reached 9.52 meters, which is at alert level 1; the Thai Binh River at Phả Lại reached 4.05 meters, about 0.5 meters above alert level 1. The small flood peaks, combined with an early end to the flood season in the North, have resulted in decreasing water levels in the rivers.
The Central Meteorological and Hydrological Forecast Center predicts that in the coming time, the flow of rivers in the North may be 20-50% lower than the average level for many years, and specifically, the water level of the Red River in the early months of the Winter-Spring season will be deficient by 20%-48%, leading to many reservoirs having low water storage levels.
