It is part of a larger project involving 37 mountainous areas across the country, which has just been approved by the Prime Minister.

The first landslide warning systems will be set up in Ha Giang, Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Lai Chau and Hoa Binh in the north, and Nghe An in the central region. These provinces, with relatively high populations, are particularly prone to landslides.

Under the project, a database of information on landslides will be created to minimize future damage and loss of life due to natural disasters.

Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha said local authorities would be able to work out their residential resettlement policies and long-term strategies to mitigate the effects of landslides based on the information obtained from the project, which will run from 2012 and 2020.

The project's first phase, which ends in 2015, will involve mapping an area prone to landslides stretching from the north to the Central Highlands. The second phase of the project, which will run from 2016 to 2020, will be based on the results of the first phase.

Tran Tan Van, director of the Institute for Geological and Mineral Sciences, said it is expensive and difficult to map landslides and install warning stations, this work is vital to the security of local people.