Vietnam to move thousands from Mekong flood zone

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam will spend nearly 2.4 trillion dong ($145 million) 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 program, approved early this week, would help 33,000 families resettle in areas away from landslides and floods, the government said in a statement on Wednesday.

About 20 percent of Vietnam's 86.5 million people live in the Cuu Long River Delta, the Vietnamese name for the Mekong river, which produces more than half of the country's paddy output and supplies more than 90 percent of its commercial rice.

Funding for the program 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 as foundations for new villages to ensure farmers' homes stay above the Mekong floods' peak level in 2000, the statement said.

Floods arrive between August and November each year in the Mekong delta, a large area of fertile soil in southern Vietnam where the Mekong river reaches the South China Sea after traveling more than 4,000 km (2,500 miles) from Tibet.

In 2000, the Mekong delta experienced the worst floods in four decades as waters rose to more than 5 meters, killing nearly 500 people, more than 300 of them children.

Early this month, the governments of Vietnam and Cambodia said rising Mekong floods may cause landslides and heavy flooding, but the seasonal floodwaters would also bring Vietnam's southern farmers good crops of rice and fish.

($1=16,496 dong)

(Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; Editing by Valerie Lee)