Death toll rises in central Vietnam post floods

Hanoi – A week of heavy rains and floods have left 20 people dead and thousands in central Vietnam without food and water, Vietnam’s main disaster agency reported Friday. “Heavy rains have lessened but the water levels in the rivers remain high,” said Dam Vinh Loi, Deputy Head of the Committee for Flood and Storm Control in Binh Dinh province. “We are trying our best to prevent some dikes from breaking.”

Loi said about 20,000 people are in need of emergency assistance. The greatest danger now is the threat of water-borne diseases because fresh water resources have been contaminated.

Authorities in four provinces in central Vietnam, say the damage was caused by Tropical Storm Noul, which struck the country last week. Several people died in landslides triggered by the heavy rains; others died from drowning.

Among the dead, was a schoolteacher who was buried in a landslide on Thursday as she traveled back home from school in Quang Ngai province. More than 50 rescuers worked to find her. Huynh Thi Kim Yen’s body was discovered on Friday and returned to her family members.

“Our forces are trying to clear the road,” said Phan Van On, head of the Committee for Flood and Storm Control in Quang Ngai province. “Rescue efforts were difficult because of the heavy rains. Fortunately, the rains are finally easing up.”

More rains are expected in the next few days, however, when a new tropical storm is expected to form over the South China sea, according to the central Hydro-Meteorology Forecasting Center in Hanoi. Winds could be as high as 120 kilometres per hour.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/243771,death-toll-rises-in-central-vietnam-post-floods.html

Floods kill 13 in central Vietnam

HANOI, Vietnam: Officials say floods and landslides triggered by several days of heavy rain have killed 13 people in central Vietnam this week.

Disaster official Le Viet Binh of Quang Ngai province says rains have stopped but water levels remained very high Friday, hindering rescue efforts. Floods and landslides have claimed four lives in the province.

“We have mobilized militiamen and police to rush food aid and medicine to one isolated district,” Binh says.

Binh Dinh province is the worst-hit, with five people being drowned, according to the provincial Web site.

Vietnam Airlines says dozens of flights to the seaside city of Nha Trang have been canceled.

Vietnam is prone to floods and storms that kill hundreds of people each year.

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Central Vietnam floods peak, toll rises to 21

HANOI – Heavy rains from a storm in central Vietnam have killed nine people, including three children, bringing the toll since late last week to 21, although the flood levels have peaked, the government said on Thursday.

Residents carry a motorcycle along a flooded road caused by a storm in Vietnam’s southern Phu Yen province November 17, 2008. A tropical storm hit central Vietnam on Monday, threatening severe floods, landslides and substantial damage to coffee output from the world’s second-largest producer of the crop. [Agencies]

Disaster reports from six central provinces hit by the storm that landed on Monday said more than 5,000 hectares of rice paddy had been destroyed, a relatively small area, but the country’s coffee crop was safe.

Several hundred families in Binh Dinh province were forced to flee their homes because of floods while landslides from heavy rains had blocked traffic in mountainous areas in Quang Ngai province, state-run Voice of Vietnam radio said.

Tropical Storm Noul, the 10th tracked by the Southeast Asian country this year, did not cause damage on the scale predicted by the government. Storms kill several hundred people each year in Vietnam.

Coffee and rice production, in which Vietnam ranks second in the world, were not affected as the storm weakened before it reached the Central Highlands coffee belt.

The Mekong Delta, the country’s main rice-growing region, lies 350 km (220 miles) south of the flood-hit area, and its latest rice crop had already been harvested.

Soldiers wade along a flooded road caused by a storm in Vietnam’s southern Ninh Thuan province November 17, 2008. A tropical storm hit central Vietnam on Monday, threatening severe floods, landslides and substantial damage to coffee output from the world’s second-largest producer of the crop. Tropical Storm Noul, with winds of 88 kph (55 mph), made landfall around the beach resort of Nha Trang late on Monday and weakened to a tropical depression, state radio said. [Agencies]

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Tropical storm loses force in Vietnam

Associated Press
2008-11-17 08:21 PM
A tropical storm heading to Vietnam lost force before striking the country’s central coast on Monday, bringing heavy rains but no deaths or injuries, officials said.

As the storm was approaching, officials called home thousands of fishing boats and began evacuating thousands of people from high-risk areas.

But Tropical Storm Noul quickly lost strength when it made landfall between the south-central provinces of Khanh Hoa and Ninh Thuan, said disaster official Tran Xuan Hoa of Ninh Thuan. It had been packing winds of 74 kilometers (46 miles) per hour as it churned toward the country’s southern coast.

Nearly 10,000 people who had been evacuated from coastal villages will be able to go home, Hoa said.

“The danger is over,” he said.

Weather forecasters initially predicted that the storm would hit Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest city, and then cut across the vast Mekong River Delta. That region is especially vulnerable to storm damage, with its dense population and makeshift houses.

But later in the day, the storm changed course, forecasters said.

Officials warned that heavy rains could worsen flooding in Ho Chi Minh City, parts of which have been inundated by surging tides over the last week.

Earlier this month, 94 people died in floods that inundated the capital, Hanoi, and other provinces in the country’s northern and central regions.

Vietnam is prone to floods, which kill hundreds each year.

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Thousands evacuate as Vietnam braces for storm

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam called its fishermen ashore and began evacuating 80,000 people from high-risk areas as a tropical storm churned toward the country’s southern coast Monday.

Weather forecasters said Tropical Storm Noul, packing winds of 74 kilometers (46 miles) per hour, was expected to make landfall later Monday between the provinces of Ninh Thuan and Khanh Hoa.

Hanoi officials urged provincial authorities to take urgent measures to minimize damages and said nearly 80,0000 people needed to be evacuated, according to the government Web site.

More than 24,500 fishing trawlers with 133,000 fishermen had been called ashore ahead of the storm, the government said.

In Khanh Hoa, emergency workers had begun evacuating thousands of residents from coastal areas to higher ground, said provincial disaster official Nguyen Xuan Quang.

Khanh Hoa, whose capital is the tourist city of Nha Trang, is about 450 kilometers (280 miles) north of Ho Chi Minh City.

About 2,000 residents on an island off the coast of the southern commercial center of Ho Chi Minh City were being evacuated, said Vice Agriculture Minister Dao Xuan Hoc.

Weather forecasters initially predicted that the storm would hit Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam’s largest city, and then cut across the vast Mekong River Delta. That region is especially vulnerable to storm damage, with its dense population and makeshift houses.

But later in the day, the storm changed course, forecasters said.

Officials warned that heavy rains could worsen flooding in Ho Chi Minh City, parts of which have been inundated by surging tides over the last week.

Earlier this month, 94 people died in floods that inundated the capital, Hanoi, and other provinces in the country’s northern and central regions.

Vietnam is prone to floods, which kill hundreds each year.

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Tropical storm threatens southern Vietnam

Hanoi – Heavy rains that have caused 12 deaths in Vietnam’s southern and central regions are making way for a tropical storm expected to hit the Mekong Delta provinces Tuesday, disaster officials said Monday. Phan Phu Chinh of the Central Committee for Storm and Flood Control said that as of Monday morning, floods had killed 12 people and left one missing in south-central Khanh Hoa and Phu Yen provinces. Thousands of homes have been submerged.

Chinh said the central provinces saw heavy rain between November 13 and 16. By Monday, heavy rains ceased, but rivers continued to rise.

The bodies of three children washed away by floods were found Sunday in Khanh Hoa province. The floods cut off railroads and highways connecting southern and central Vietnam.

Authorities Monday morning reported Tropical Storm Noul was expected to make landfall Tuesday in the country’s central region and the Mekong River delta. The storm was expected to pack winds of 62 to 88 kilometres per hour.

Vietnamese media reported Sunday that Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung had urged provinces to move people to higher ground and to call home thousands of fishing boats.

Schools in storm stricken areas will close for several days starting Tuesday. Boats have been banned from operating on some rivers.

Local media reported the country’s border guards had managed to contact just 2,000 out of 18,000 vessels operating in the South China sea to warn them of the storm.

Vietnam disaster centres and local media said floods had submerged thousands of homes in Ho Chi Minh City over the weekend.

Floods are a common occurrence in Vietnam and kill hundreds of people every year.

According to Vietnamese authorities, floods between October 31 and November 6 triggered by heavy rains in the country’s north and centre killed 59 people and inundated the capital, Hanoi. Other media put the number of deaths as high as 94.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/241934,tropical-storm-threatens-southern-vietnam.html

Storm churns towards Vietnam

Reuters
Monday, November 17, 2008

By Ho Binh Minh

A strong tropical storm churned towards southern Vietnam on Monday, threatening a direct hit on the densely populated Mekong Delta and substantial damage to the country’s coffee production.

State-run forecasters said Tropical Storm Noul, with winds of 88 kph (55 mph), would reach landfall around the tourist spots of Nha Trang and Mui Ne late on Monday and cross the coffee-growing province of Lam Dong.

Vietnam is the world’s second-largest coffee producer and the third-largest producer of crude oil in Southeast Asia.

Noul’s arrival coincides with the peak of the coffee harvest in the Central Highlands. Torrential rains could halt the harvest and prevent farmers from drying beans outdoors, causing delays and lowering quality.

The storm could also wreak havoc in the delta, which normally avoids the worst of the storms that roll in from the South China Sea, making people who live there relatively unprepared for disaster.

“It could cause huge damage to lives and property,” Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung said in an urgent telegraph to provincial authorities and state oil and gas group Petrovietnam.

All offshore oil production remained operational, an official from Petrovietnam said, although state television said Vietsovpetro, a Russian joint venture, would temporarily shut operation on four oil rigs and evacuate workers.

It did not say how much production would be affected.

In his telegraph, Hung ordered the immediate recall of all fishing boats in the area and said children should not go to school as preparations were made for mass evacuations across a 400 km (250 mile) swathe of coastline.

More than 74,000 people needed evacuation while more than 133,000 fishermen had been warned to take shelter as the storm moved to within 100 kms (65 miles) of the coast, the government said.

In neighbouring Cambodia, Prime Minister Hun Sen cancelled a scheduled trip on Tuesday to the coastal province of Kampot, abutting Vietnam, because of the storm.

Vietnamese government reports said more than 17,000 fishing boats were operating near the Spratlys in the path of the storm.

The Mekong Delta, where the latest rice crop has been harvested, is rarely hit by storms. Typhoon Linda caught the region unawares in November 1997, killing at least 464 people. The government never revised an initial tally that listed more than 3,200 people as missing.

(Additional reporting by Nguyen Nhat Lam and Ek Madra in Phnom Penh; Editing by Ed Cropley and David Fox)

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Tropical storm to hit Vietnam

HANOI – A STRONG tropical storm is forecasted to slam into Vietnam’s southern coast late on Monday, bringing heavy rains to its central and southern provinces which may disrupt the country’s coffee harvest, state-run radio said.

Storm Noul was moving fast and its damage could be huge, given it would land in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, where residents have little experience fighting storms, the Voice of Vietnam radio said in an urgent bulletin.

The storm could disrupt oil and gas production off Vietnam’s southern coast while heavy rains may halt the coffee harvest about to peak in the country’s Central Highlands. — REUTERS

Tropical storm to hit Vietnam

Floods kill 11 in central and southern Vietnam

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Flooding killed at least 11 people in Vietnam’s southern and central regions, submerged thousands of homes in its largest city and stranded air and railway passengers, officials said Sunday.

The country braced for more rain as another tropical weather system approached, forecasters said.

Floods caused by surging high tides submerged thousands of homes in the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City over the weekend, according to state media.

No deaths were reported in the city, but television footage showed homes and streets in the downtown area under three feet of water.

At least eight people were killed in heavy rains in southern Khanh Hoa province over the weekend, including a 2-year-old boy who drowned, said disaster official Pham Van Quang.

In neighboring Phu Yen province, the bodies of three children were recovered Sunday after being washed away from their homes, said provincial official Dang Thi Lanh.

The floods disrupted the main highway and railway links between northern and southern Vietnam. Flights were canceled to Nha Trang, a southern beach resort town. Thousands of passengers were stranded, Lanh said.

Rains had stopped in most areas by Sunday afternoon, but a tropical low pressure system was moving toward the country’s central and southern coast and was expected to bring more heavy rain to the already hard-hit areas, the national forecaster said.

“We have mobilized hundreds of militiamen to help people in low-lying villages to reinforce their houses,” Lanh said.

Vietnam is prone to floods, which kill hundreds each year. Last week, 94 people died in floods that inundated the capital, Hanoi, and other provinces in the country’s northern and central regions.

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Vietnam aims for quick full recovery from historic floods

Hanoi was the worst-hit locality during the historic flooding late last month. At least 22 people were reported dead or missing in the wake of the floods.

Vietnam’s northern and north-central provinces have been asked to marshal all forces to facilitate a swift recovery from the floods earlier this month that caused nearly VND8 trillion (US$472 million) in losses.

“We have to mobilize all necessary resources to stabilize residents’ lives and resume production,” Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung told an online forum on the issue Friday, which was attended by relevant authorities and officials from 18 cities and provinces.

Hung instructed concerned ministries to continue working on sending relief, preventing diseases, providing housing to affected residents, and resuming schools, hospitals and agricultural production.

He also instructed ministry and provincial officials to improve water drainage and irrigating systems and adapt production methods in line with possible disaster conditions.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Friday reported that floods, up till Wednesday, have damaged 30,000 hectares of rice paddies, 210,000 hectares of other crops, 10,000 hectares of fruits and 40,000 hectares of fisheries, with 200,000 livestock having been swept away.

Thousands of houses are still under water and infrastructure has been seriously damaged in many areas, the ministry reported, adding that continued flooding would cause more losses with the winter cultivating season only 15 days away.

In Hanoi, 18,000 hectares were still inundated, including 26 residential areas with 8,700 households, with some areas still under 1.2 meter of water, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Trinh Duy Hung said. The city is projected to spend VND800 billion ($47.2 million) total for relief efforts.

Many other provinces in the Red River Delta also reported that floods have seriously damaged water drainage systems and thousands of households were facing starvation.

Some provinces have requested the government to supply three months worth of rice, estimated to be around 8,400 tons, to feed households in flooded areas. The bill for recovery works is estimated to be some VND1.45 trillion ($85.6 million).

The session Friday also discussed renovating the drainage systems around the Red River Delta.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has said VND2.49 trillion ($146.9 million) is needed to construct replacement and additional water drainage systems in the delta over the next two years.

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