VietNam Society: safety

Showing posts with label safety. Show all posts

Monday, January 24, 2011

Coaches lack safety equipment

HA NOI — Most coaches based out of Ha Noi's terminals lack safety equipment such as emergency hammers, fire-extinguishers and seatbelts.

Nguyen Huu Hao, who drives a coach on the Ha Noi - Thanh Hoa route, said that every coach had hammers to smash windows in case of emergency and fire-extinguishers when it was first bought, but the items had gone missing over time.

"The fire-extinguishers have also become rusty," he said.

Another driver, who wished to remain anonymous, said that passengers didn't care whether his coach had emergency hammers and fire-extinguishers, and he didn't need the equipment anyway because he never had accidents.

He claimed that passengers didn't have any idea what an emergency hammer looked like, and wouldn't know how to use them to smash windows anyway.

Passenger Nguyen Duc Thanh said he had never seen rescue equipment on coaches, and most of coaches only had multimedia equipment for showing DVDs or for singing karaoke.

"I hope terminal management equip their coaches with emergency hammers and fire-extinguishers, and give passengers guidance on how to use them," he said.

Despite it being quite common for equipment to become lost, terminal management and drivers remained unaware of suppliers.

Nguyen Minh Anh, owner of an accessory shop on Tran Khat Chan Road, said that previously his shop had sold safety equipment for coaches, but people rarely bought it now.

"Mine and many other shops on this street don't bother selling this equipment any more," he said.

The Viet Nam Vehicle Licensing Department regulates that all coaches must have safety equipment, yet the country still lacks any guidance on punishment for violators.

Government's Decree 34/2010/ND-CP, which regulates administrative fines for traffic violations, does not specify fines for coaches lacking safety equipment.

Director of the Department for Transport and Legislation under the Directorate for Roads of Viet Nam Do Xuan Hoa said: "The lack of punishments means terminal management aren't paying any attention to safety equipment."

The lack of safety equipment was thrown into sharp relief when floodwater swept away a coach carrying 37 passengers from National Highway 1A in the central province of Ha Tinh this October. Twenty passengers died in the incident as they could not swim, and the bus lacked emergency hammers to smash the windows. — VNS

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Functional foods are fine, but safety counts

by Hoang Ha

HCM CITY — Functional foods including increasingly popular food supplements can help fight serious diseases in both developed and developing countries, experts said at a two-day conference that ended in HCM City yesterday.

Food scientists, however, also stressed the need to ensure that the ingredients and processes applied meet "global sound scientific standards" for food safety.

Dr Mary Schmidl, adjunct professor of the International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST) Scientific Council Chair, mentioned the need for making smaller portions of all foods, including functional foods.

She said long term safety studies and ‘in market surveillance" were necessary, especially for new highly enriched or fortified foods.

While functional foods can help tackle food safety, hunger and obesity, she said companies making them need to have sound scientific evidence to back up their claims about benefits provided by their products.

"False claims give false hopes to desperate people and, in the worst case, delay necessary treatment," she said. She said functional foods must not distract people from adopting a healthy diet.

The most recent trend in food innovation and development is the use of novel or traditional functional ingredients, said Ser-Low Wai Ming, president of Singapore's Institute of Food Science & Technology (SIFST), a professional society of food scientists, food technologists, chemists, biochemists, microbiologists, engineers, educators and other technical personnel.

Safety innovations

Safe, quality and healthy food is the requirement of the day, said Prakash, director of India's Central Food Technological Research Institute.

"Hence, agro-based raw materials need to be added to nutrition," he said.

This can be achieved through empowering rural and semi urban spheres with adaptable food technologies through micro, tiny, cottage and women entrepreneurship, he said.

The driving force of this process would be "cascading small, medium, large and global food industries," he added.

Prakash said the farming system, agro-industry and technologies of identification, verification, refinement and transfer are requirements for enhancing food safety, as well as nutritional and food security.

Besides, the food safety system must have four key attributes to achieve its objectives: prevention, accountability, integration in the chain, and risk assessment, he said.

To deliver safe food with zero contamination of pesticides, zero contamination of heavy metals, absence of toxins and no pathogens is not an easy task, Prakash said.

Do Thi Lan Nhi, training manager at the Viet Nam Administration of Food Science and Technology (VAFoST) said there were food safety concerns about many popular food items in the country, including the nation's most popular dish, Pho (rice noodle soup with beef or chicken), fish sauce and coffee.

The ingredients used in preparing these dishes by small, family based businesses were not easy to keep track of, she said. The chili sauce made by family-run workshop, for instance, carried no labels and could use hazardous biological and chemical substances, she said.

The conference, billed as the "first international symposium in food science and the technology" was co-organised by the IUFoST and the VAFoST. — VNS

Food safety, hygiene-top priority

Vietnam has paid a lot of attention to food safety and hygiene as the National Assembly has passed a law on the issue, which will come into effect in July 2011.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) held a forum of donors’ on food safety in Hanoi on December 1. The head of its International Cooperation Department, Luong The Phiet, reaffirmed the important role played by farm produce in the national economy and the need to improve the quality of farm produce to improve people’s standard of living.

Andrew Smith, a development officer at the Canadian embassy in Vietnam , said that once food safety is ensured, Vietnamese farm produce will have more opportunities to export as well as contribute to improving the health of consumers.

The forum, co-sponsored by the International Support Group, is a venue for international donors and Vietnamese agencies to exchange information and experience in food safety and work out ways to effectively use international aid in this field.

The forum was concluded with the debut of the website www.thucphamantoanviet.vn which provides information on the quality of farm produce.

The event was part of a project on increasing the quality of food and agricultural products, worth 16 million CAD and funded by the Canadian International Development Agency. The five-year project will run until 2013 to improve quality and increase access to overseas markets for Vietnamese farm produce./.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Road safety group calls for zero tolerance for drunk driving

Road safety group calls for zero tolerance for drunk driving Alcohol impairment is a major risk factor in Vietnam that cannot be tolerated, said the Global Road Safety Partnership, an organization working towards improving road safety.

“A zero-tolerance approach to enforcing legislation that gets alcohol-impaired drivers and riders off the road before someone is injured or killed is one of the most effective of road safety interventions,” Gayle DiPietro, a GRSP official, said in a statement released Monday.

The organization is coordinating with the Vietnam National and Provincial Traffic Safety Committees and the World Health Organization to organize a road safety workshop in the northern provice of Ha Nam from October 18-20.

It is part of a global program to improve road safety for ten countries with the highest burdens of traffic injury.

Last month, the group held a training workshop at the People’s Police Academy in Hanoi, focusing on enhanced enforcement strategies, tactics and procedures for the effective prevention of drinking and driving, including the use of alcohol breathalyzers.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Road safety group calls for zero tolerance for drunk driving

It is part of a global program to improve road safety for ten countries with the highest burdens of traffic injury.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Poor fire safety levels put high-rise residents at risk

A large number of high-rise buildings in Hanoi fail to meet health and safety regulations, said Nguyen Dinh Binh, deputy chief of the city police's Fire Prevention and Fighting Division.

Binh said undue pressure had been put on investors to complete projects quickly, particularly in resettlement areas, forcing them to take short cuts when it came to fire safety.

Exacerbating the problem, the fire chief said local residents were largely ignorant about fire prevention and what to do in an emergency.

He said many threw discarded burning embers unsafely, and some residents even activated fire alarms to entertain their babies.

Furthermore, he said fire exits were often blocked with personal possessions, motorbikes or even cars.

"Most residents do not receive training on fire prevention and fighting so know very little about what to do in an emergency," Binh said.

He added that apartment block management boards paid little attention to fire safety.

Le Thi Thanh Dung, who lives in apartment block No 27 on Lac Trung Street in Hai Ba Trung District, said she had lived in her flat for three years and had never received instruction on fire prevention or safety.

"We do not even know how to use a portable fire extinguisher," she said.

Dung also said that some of her neighbours burnt votive papers in the stairwells, despite warnings from the building's managers.

"Being given a warning is not enough. They should be firmly punished," she said.

A survey by the Fire Prevention and Fighting Police Division in March revealed that Hanoi has 364 over 10-storey apartment blocks that are serviced by just 50 fire engines.

Furthermore, just 228 are equipped with smoke detectors, while just 151 have their fire alarms regularly serviced or perform evacuation drills.

Binh said the fire services could not properly tackle blazes in buildings over 10-storeys high.

"We can fight fires in buildings of 10 stories or less, but higher than that, portable fire extinguishers have to be used," he said.

City police recently proposed that the municipal People's Committee order buildings of more than 10-storeys to be equipped with fire shelters.

Following a request by the Government, the Ministry of Construction is drafting regulations on fire prevention and fighting which require investors to spend between 8-17 percent of the total capital budget on fire precautions.

"We will join hands with apartment blocks' management boards to train local residents with the skills needed to protect themselves against fire," Binh said, adding that making residents more aware of what to do in an emergency would reduce panic – a major cause of fatal accidents.

Last March, two residents died when the 18-storey JSC 34 block in Thanh Xuan District caught fire.

Last December, fire fighters took two hours to extinguish a blaze in an apartment block in Me Tri Ha Resident Quarter in Tu Liem district./.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Poor fire safety levels put high-rise residents at risk

Officers from the Fire Prevention and Fighting Police Division in Ha Noi carry out a practice drill at the Vimeco building in My Dinh. Many buildings in Ha Noi fail to meet safety regulations, said Nguyen Dinh Binh, deputy chief of the Fire Prevention and Fighting Division. — VNA/VNS Photo Tung Lam

HA NOI — A large number of high-rise buildings in Ha Noi fail to meet health and safety regulations, said Nguyen Dinh Binh, deputy chief of the city police's Fire Prevention and Fighting Division.