Hanoi, Jan. 16 -- With less than a month to go before the Lunar New Year (Tet), a sense of urgency still permeates villages across central Vietnam, a region battered by an exceptionally harsh year of natural disasters. Tens of thousands of newly built or repaired houses are nearing completion, offering renewed hope to families preparing to welcome the Year of the Horse under safer roofs. The year 2025 is remembered as one of the most devastating in terms of natural disasters, with successive storms and floods sweeping from northern mountainous areas to the central and the Central Highlands regions. In the stretch from Quang Tri to Lam Dong provinces, nearly 1,600 houses were completely destroyed or swept away, while more than 34,700 other...