Vietnam braces for deadly typhoon
VIETNAM: Hundreds of thousands of people in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta have been evacuated as the region braces for the arrival of Typhoon Tembin after the storm left more than 160 people dead in the Philippines.
Weather forecasters said they were expecting the delta’s southern tip to be in Tembin’s path, and said heavy rain and strong winds could cause serious damage in the vulnerable region, where facilities are not built to cope with such severe weather.
National television station VTV reported that several hundred thousand people were evacuated from their houses, which are mostly made from tin sheets and wooden panels.
In Vung Tau city, thousands of fishing boats halted their monthslong fishing trips to return to shore.
Typhoons and storms rarely hit the Mekong Delta. But in 1997, Tropical Storm Linda swept the area, killing 770 people and leaving more than 2000 missing.
Over the weekend, Tembin unleashed landslides and flash floods that killed at least 164 people and left 171 others missing in the Philippines, according to Romina Marasigan of the government’s main disaster response agency.
More than 97,000 people remained in 261 evacuation centres across the southern Philippines yesterday, while nearly 85,000 others were displaced and staying elsewhere, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said.
The hardest-hit areas were Lanao del Norte and Lanao del Sur provinces and the Zamboanga Peninsula. Tembin hit the Philippines as a tropical storm but strengthened into a typhoon before blowing out of the country on Monday into the South China Sea towards Vietnam.
Philippine officials had warned villagers in accident-prone areas to evacuate early as Tembin approached, and the government was trying to find out what caused the widespread storm deaths, Marasigan said. She added that it was difficult to move people from their homes shortly before Christmas. –AP