The Đà Nẵng City Military Command assists residents in rebuilding homes after floods. — VNA/VNS Photos
As the year-end rains subsided, the real countdown began. With only weeks left before Tết (Lunar New Year), tens of thousands of flood-hit families are still waiting for a safe place to live.
The Quang Trung Campaign has emerged out of that moment of urgency, transforming disaster recovery into a swift, large-scale mobilisation aimed at ensuring no one welcomes the Lunar New Year without a roof over their head.
From the start of 2025 to early December, successive natural disasters caused severe damage nationwide.
Ministry of Agriculture and Environment data show that in the first 11 months of the year, 4,193 homes collapsed or were swept away, while nearly 348,000 others were damaged. The central and Central Highlands regions suffered most, with historic floods from late November destroying or damaging thousands of houses and leaving more than 280,000 inundated just weeks before Tết.
Experts said the devastation was not only due to record flood peaks, but also unprecedented flood volumes.
Associate Professor Dr Nguyễn Tiền Giang of Việt Nam National University Hà Nội said that several rivers exceeded historic records, while total flood volumes far surpassed those of earlier disasters, causing rapid, deep and prolonged inundation.
For residents, the floods rose faster and stronger than anything they had experienced before.
Nguyễn Thị Tám, 60, a resident of Quy Nhơn Bắc Ward in the low-lying Hà Thanh River area of Gia Lai Province, said annual flooding is nothing new, but this year’s deluge was unlike anything before.
“Thinking it would be the same as every year, we raised our belongings by only about half a metre,” she told the Việt Nam Government Portal. “By dawn on November 19, floodwaters were already 60cm deep inside the house, then rose violently. In just a few hours, the whole neighbourhood was swallowed by water.”
When the waters receded, they left behind widespread loss and anxiety.
During visits to the hardest-hit provinces, Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính pledged that no one would be forced to welcome Tết without shelter.
On November 30, the PM officially launched the Quang Trung Campaign, setting clear deadlines for all damaged homes to be repaired by the end of December, and for all collapsed or swept-away houses to be rebuilt or resettled by January 31, 2026.
Local authorities moved quickly, and on land still scarred by floods, solid new homes began to rise.
Officers from the Military Region 5, Military School, build a new house for a local resident in Hòa Mỹ Commune, Đắk Lắk Province.
In Gia Lai Province, 88-year-old Tô Thị Sửa received her new house in mid-December, just weeks after her home was destroyed.
Built in just over 15 days with State support and contributions from the military and her family, Sửa now has a new house to welcome the Lunar New Year.
“When the soldiers arrived on December 3 to start building the house, I knew my dream of having a safe place to live is becoming a reality,” Sửa said. “I am deeply grateful to the Party, the State, the local authorities and the soldiers.”
At a meeting on December 17, PM Chính reiterated that delays were unacceptable, urging all agencies to act with maximum responsibility and empathy.
Each brick laid was not only a home for a family, but a commitment that the Government puts people’s safety and stability first, he said.
More than a race against time to rebuild before Tết, the Quang Trung Campaign marks a decisive step in the broader drive to eliminate makeshift housing and ensure lasting security for communities in disaster-prone areas.
Local authorities have been instructed to place absolute priority on safety and people’s right to housing, completing work day by day and household by household.
Less than three weeks after its launch, the campaign has already delivered remarkable results. By December 17, construction had begun on 1,622 new houses, reaching 98.1 per cent of the target, while repairs had been completed on more than 32,000 damaged homes, surpassing 90 per cent.
In Đắk Lắk Province, more than 6,100 damaged houses had been repaired by early December, and all 653 new houses had already started construction, with delivery targeted before mid-January 2026.
By mid-November, more than two thirds of planned new houses were essentially completed in Gia Lai Province, while nearly 92 per cent of damaged homes had been repaired.
Associate Professor Dr Bùi Hoài Sơn, permanent member of the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture and Society, said that the campaign’s greatest gain is not the number of homes completed, but the trust it has restored.
“That trust is visible in the eyes of elderly residents receiving the keys to new homes, in the smiles of barefoot children running across fresh concrete floors, and in the quiet gratitude shown to soldiers who lived and worked on site for weeks to meet the deadline,” he said.
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Deputy Prime Minister Mai Văn Chính (centre) performs the ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of houses for disaster-affected residents in Lâm Đồng Province.
In recent years, the Government has rolled out a series of major campaigns with wide-ranging socio-economic impact at exceptional speed, notably the nationwide programme to eliminate makeshift and dilapidated housing – a landmark achievement in Việt Nam’s poverty reduction efforts.
Resolution 42-NQ/TW dated November 24, 2023 set a goal of eliminating makeshift housing by 2030 for vulnerable groups, a task the PM has repeatedly said cannot be delayed, as each day of inaction leaves people without secure shelter.
On April 13, 2024, the Government and the Vietnam Fatherland Front launched a nationwide emulation drive, including a 450-day campaign to accelerate progress.
The timeline was steadily shortened, and by August 15, 2025 the programme was completed nationwide, with 334,234 makeshift and dilapidated houses eliminated – five years and four months ahead of the Resolution’s target, and four months earlier than planned.
As 2025 comes to an end, it is becoming evident that the year has been shaped by a series of policy decisions with clear socio-economic effects, many of them implemented within short timeframes.
These ranged from efforts to ease institutional bottlenecks and push infrastructure investment to emergency measures aimed at protecting livelihoods after natural disasters.
Within this context, the nationwide programme to eliminate makeshift housing and the Quang Trung Campaign have linked post-disaster recovery with longer-term goals, such as safer housing, social stability and sustained development.
The Quang Trung Campaign stands out for both pace and scope. In just 62 days and nights, 1,622 new houses were built and more than 32,000 damaged homes repaired.
New houses were built to technical requirements, with solid foundations, reinforced frames and flood-adaptation features suited to local conditions.
The military and police played a key role on the ground, with more than 5,600 soldiers, hundreds of vehicles and around 11,200 police officers deployed to clear debris, rebuild houses and restore essential facilities across central and Central Highlands provinces.
These days, family members of Nguyễn Đình Lượn in Xuân Phú Hamlet, Khe Tre Commune, Huế City are preparing to move into a new home after months of hardship.
Their previous house collapsed during the floods, leaving them to live in temporary shelter.
As a disadvantaged household, the family received about VNĐ200 million (nearly US$7,600) in support from agencies, mass organisations and businesses, along with labour assistance from officers and soldiers from the Huế City Military Command.
“Living in a small makeshift shelter was extremely difficult,” Lượn said. “Thanks to support from the State, benefactors and the soldiers, our family can finally move into a solid home.”
Soldiers from the Phú Thọ Province Military Command work to help residents eliminate makeshift and dilapidated houses in Xuân Đài Commune.