Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the event. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on November 5 asked ministries, agencies, and localities to further concentrate on and take drastic measures in fire prevention and fighting as in the coming time, fire incidents tend to develop complicatedly.

Chairing a national online conference to evaluate the 10-month implementation of the Prime Minister's Directive No. 01/CT-TTg dated January 3, 2023 on strengthening fire prevention and fighting in the new situation, PM Chinh said that it is a must to strengthen the leadership and management of authorities and improve public awareness and skills in this regard.

The whole political system and society should engage in fire prevention and control, search and rescue once an incident happens, he said, requesting ministries and agencies to complete relevant regulations and standards, tighten inspections, and strictly punish violators.

Hailing efforts taken by ministries, agencies, and localities at all levels over the past time, the government leader noted more efforts are needed in the time ahead.

More than 40,000 fire prevention and fighting teams have been set up in the community, more than 11 million households got firefighting equipment and 3 million built second exits at their houses.

Authorities inspected nearly 190,000 establishments, detected about 67,000 shortcomings that need to be fixed, and imposed administrative fines on over 8,500 cases.

In the last ten months, nearly 900 people were rescued from fires.