The country has risen by six places to 70th in the 2019 UL Safety Index released by Underwriters Laboratories, a safety science company.
The ranking measured the safety environment in 187 countries and territories based on 17 indicators grouped in three criteria: resources and institutions, safety frameworks and safety outcomes.
Vietnam got a score of 66 out of 100, indicating it has developing socioeconomic conditions and preventative safety measures, the report said.
“But the country has not done a good job in dealing with road safety and drowning issues.”
Road accidents remain the biggest single cause of deaths in the country even as it works hard to make roads safer. Traffic congestion, inadequate enforcement of the law, poor driving skills, and bad street conditions are the main reasons for road crashes.
A recent survey by the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that every year around 9,000 people die on Vietnam’s roads, or one every hour, costing the country approximately 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product.
Child drowning deaths are not uncommon in Vietnam, which besides a long coastline also has innumerable rivers, canals and ponds. More than 11,000 children drown each year, half of them aged under 19, according to the WHO.
The rate of child drowning in Vietnam is higher than in other Southeast Asian nations and 10 times higher than in developed countries, the survey found.
Vietnamese schools do not teach students how to swim mainly due to a lack of facilities. The government has tried to introduce swimming classes in schools nationwide but the program has only become popular in urban areas.
Underwriters Laboratories reported that Norway was the safest country in the world followed by the Netherlands and Sweden while poor countries mired in conflict like Syria, Somalia, Iraq, and South Sudan propped up the index.
Vietnam was fifth among the 10 Southeast Asian nations in terms of overall safety, with Singapore topping the list.
- Texas Woman, Who Was Possibly Living at Fitness Center, Found Nearly Drowned in Pool
- Final Welfare Report Released of Mother Charged in Drowning Daughter
- How We Die: Drowning Edition
- An Important Cog: An India-Vietnam-Taiwan axis could add to the multipolarity narrative in the Indo-Pacific
- Olympic Gold-Medal Swimmer Who Almost Drowned as a Child Is Devoted to Teaching Kids How to Swim
- MAGA Hat High Schoolers Harass Native American Vietnam Vet
- Biafra and Vietnam, 1968: Intertwined visions of post-colonial catastrophe
- Global footwear giants shift sourcing from China to Vietnam
- A List of Things Much Better (and Safer!) Than Water to Throw at Stupid, Silly, Dangerous Racists
- Scientists have established a link between brain damage and religious fundamentalism (among Vietnam vets)
