500 police officers to protect cherry blossom festival

      The largest-ever cherry blossom festival will open at the Quan Ngua Sports Palace in Hanoi on April 10. To prevent damage to the flowers and trees from visitors, more than 500 policemen will protect the festival this year.
The Chairman of the Vietnam-Japan Cultural Exchange Association, Vu Khac Lien, said that the last festival left a bad impression on foreign visitors when many unaware people picked flowers and broke off branches. This year, the festival will be closely protected by police.
Senior Lieutenant-colonel Nguyen Van Hai, Vice chief of the Hanoi Police Agency Office, said 400 branches of cherry flowers were transported by air to Hanoi and they are being preserved in a cool room.
Hai said the Hanoi Police Agency will assign around 500 police officers to the festival, including police officers from some other districts in Hanoi and mobile police.
“Those who pick flowers and break branches of cherry will be punished,” Hai said.
This is the third cherry blossom festival in Vietnam, which is expected to welcome around 200,000 visitors.