Vietnam seeks 149 missing fishermen as storm wanes
HANOI - Authorities in central Vietnam said on
Monday they had located 14 fishermen sheltering from heavy
weather caused by tropical storm Kajiki, but were still awaiting news of 149 others aboard
12 missing fishing vessels.
The 14 fishermen had called home from the Paracel archipelago, where they took shelter
from the storm, said a senior border official on Ly Son island off the province of Quang
Ngai.
"They are on a deep-water fishing vessel which has a radio so they knew of the storm," he
told Reuters. "They have managed to telephone home saying they are safe in the Paracels."
He hoped that the other 12 vessels with 149 fishermen aboard had managed to take refuge
at the Spratly archipelago, but authorities had had no contact with them, the official added.
The vessels have been missing since the Kajiki approached on Friday. The official said
authorities in nearby coastal provinces had been asked to help search for the fishermen.
"These vessels left nine or 10 days ago, before the storm came, so they may not have
heard of it," he said.
A report by the National Centre for Hydro Meteorology said that at 1 p.m. (0600 GMT) a
tropical low pressure system formed as Kajiki weakened overnight and moved closer to
the coast between Danang and Binh Dinh province, 290 km (180 miles) to the south.
It said the system was forecast to bring rains to six central provinces, including Danang,
Quang Nam, Quang Ngai and Binh Dinh, and cause strong sea swells.
The report said in the next 12 hours, the system would be virtually stationary, with wind
speeds at its centre at Force Six on the Beaufort Scale, or up to 49 kph, with some
stronger gusts.
High waves, rains and strong winds were lashing the island on Monday.
In Danang said torrential rains fell on Monday morning but stopped in the afternoon,
although the weather remained cloudy, an official there.
Coffee not hit
Traders in Vietnam's coffee belt bordering the coastal provinces of Phu Yen and Khanh
Hoa said no rains had fallen there over the weekend, but the weather was cloudy on
Monday.
They expected no impact on the crop because harvesting was 65 to 80 percent complete.
A weather report for the key coffee province of Daklak forecast light rain in the centre and
southwest but none in its eastern regions.
Floods caused by Kajiki have killed one person in the Philippines, while another was
reported missing as thousands abandoned their homes when it struck there on Thursday.
Vietnam is regularly hit by tropical storms, and natural disasters in the central region killed
more than 730 people in 1999.
Earlier this year 390 people, mostly children, were killed in floods in the rice-growing
Mekong Delta region in the south. In mid-November typhoon Lingling killed 26 people,
mostly in Phu Yen, injured dozens and left 13,000 homeless in central Vietnam after killing
hundreds in the Philippines.
Reuters - December 10, 2001.
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