PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc has agreed to give VND350bn (USD15m) to five provinces in the Mekong Delta region to cope with the ongoing drought and saline intrusion.

Prolonged droughts have made adverse impacts on the lives of people in the central region of Vietnam.

Some provinces in the central region have been seriously affected by drought drying up rivers and ponds, causing paddy fields to be fallowed and upseting the life of local people.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong asked the Directorate of Water Resources (DWR) to draw out a drought map for the central region during a working session with ministry-level units in Hanoi on July 22.

In Quang Binh province, dozens of local reservoirs are running out of water which puts the summer-fall rice crop of 2018-2019 at risk.

 Farmers in the central Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan provinces have been forced to switch to crops that require less water, such as grass used to feed cows and buffalo, to cope with water shortages caused by prolonged drought.