The National Traffic Safety Committee and the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee on November 11 held an annual requiem for the victims who lost their life to traffic accidents in Vietnam this year.

At the event (Photo: VNA) 

The event aims to raise an alarm in the whole society on traffic accidents in the country, thus raising awareness of the community in abiding by the traffic law and calling on them to assist the victims and their families.

The participants observed a minute of silence in memory of the victims and the organizing board delivered relief aid to representatives of bereaved families.

Speaking at the event, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh, who is also head of the national committee, said that traffic accidents take the life of over 8,000 people and injure more than 15,000 others in Vietnam each year. Losses caused by traffic accidents are causing adverse influences on the country’s economic growth and hurting the image of Vietnam in the eye of foreign friends and partners, the official stressed.

He called on relevant State offices, organisations and the whole people to seriously abide by legal provisions on traffic safety, adding the community should join hands to build and implement the traffic civilization and to ease the pains of the families of traffic accidents.

In October alone, the whole country saw more than 114,000 traffic accidents that took the life of over 6,000 people and injured more than 10,000 others, lower than the figures recorded the same time last year.

In 2005, the United Nations designated the third Sunday of every November as the day for the world to remember the victims who die in traffic accidents. Vietnam started to join the day in 2012.