Floods feared after typhoon kills five in Vietnam
HANOI - Vietnam issued flood warnings on Wednesday after Typhoon Damrey killed five people and shattered sections of the network of sea dykes protecting the country's second most important rice growing area.
The area in Vietnam most likely to suffer floods was the province of Ninh Binh, 90 km (55 miles) south of Hanoi, the government's Committee for Flood and Storm Prevention said.
The lashing rains Damrey brought on Tuesday after killing 16 people on the Chinese island of Hainan were swelling rivers very quickly, it said.
The rains also struck Laos, where the government said it had no immediate reports of major damage.
"We've had heavy rain all night and we are monitoring the flooding situation closely, but there is nothing major so far. Just some roofing gone," Lao government spokesman Yong Chanhthalansy said.
There were also flash floods in northern Thailand, but no immediate reports of casualties from Damrey -- Khmer for elephant -- which caused widespread economic damage and the evacuations of hundreds of thousands of people as it approached.
The China Daily newspaper put the cost on Hainan at 10 billion yuan and Vietnam said at least 60,000 hectares (148,000 acres) of rice were damaged.
Vietnam's dyke system, built to withstand strong gales and protect rice fields in the north, buckled under the power of winds which topped 130 kph (80 mph) and sea surges of up to 5 meters (16 feet).
Sections crumpled in four provinces, power supplies and telecommunications were hit and thousands of homes swamped, state media said.
No impact on crude output
But the typhoon did not hit the Central Highlands coffee belt further to the south and had no impact on crude oil output as Vietnam's offshore rigs are well to the south.
The government said in a statement televised nationwide on Tuesday it was rushing emergency food and supplies to devastated areas to which evacuees returned only to find homes and rice fields under water.
Nguyen Thi Nguyet, general secretary of the Vietnam Food Association, said the government was expected to take food relief from national reserves and would have no impact on exports.
"Rice from the region's warehouses can be used to meet the food demand," she told Reuters. "Besides, the region is also harvesting a crop with higher yields this year."
The northern region incorporating the Red River Delta is Vietnam's second-largest rice growing area after the Mekong Delta in the south.
It produces about 36 percent of Vietnam's rice, which is used mainly for domestic consumption, and shrimp and fish farms in the area also suffered damage.
But the disruption to production in flooded areas will reduce supplies of vegetables and seafood to regional markets, including Hanoi, home to 3 million people where prices of the products have already started rising.
The Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted a Health Ministry report as saying two people died in Nam Dinh province and two in Thanh Hoa province. One person drowned in Quang Ninh province, it said.
The Health Ministry called on local health workers to clean up the environment to prevent the diseases which often follow natural disasters.
By Ho Binh Minh - Reuters - September 28, 2005.
Vietnam clears up after typhoon
Northern Vietnam has started clearing up after a powerful typhoon breached sea defences and forced thousands of people to evacuate inland.
Typhoon Damrey killed at least four people in Vietnam, after leaving 16 dead on China's Hainan island.
Homes and rice crops in Vietnam's Thanh Hoa and Nam Dinh provinces have been flooded and power cut.
The storm was downgraded as it headed inland, and no rain was reported in Vietnam on Wednesday.
Nearly 300,000 people were moved from the Vietnamese coast before the typhoon hit on Tuesday morning, one of the largest such operations ever undertaken.
Sea surges
It is not yet clear how much damage Damrey - which means elephant in Khmer - has done, but local officials warned it was the most powerful to hit northern Vietnam in several years.
Two people were killed in Thanh Hoa province and nine others injured across the region as electricity poles and houses collapsed, according to reports.
State media said many homes and thousands of hectares of rice fields had been flooded after a network of dykes was breached.
Several northern and central provinces suffered power blackouts, amid reports of trees and power lines knocked down, roofs blown off and powerful sea surges up to 15ft (4.5m) high, made worse by high tides.
A resident of Thanh Hoa province told the BBC that the authorities had prepared well for the storm.
Killer winds
In the Chinese island province of Hainan, officials described Damrey as the worst typhoon to strike the province in decades.
Economic losses have been estimated at 10bn yuan ($1.2bn), the official Xinhua news agency said.
Many homes were damaged, power lines cut, and experts have warned of huge losses to the harvest of rice, rubber and bananas. There have also been warnings of severe delays in restoring electricity to parts of the island.
According to Xinhua, the typhoon packed winds up to 198km/h (125mph) when it hit Hainan on Monday, making it comparable with Hurricane Rita which hit the US Gulf Coast at the weekend.
While still a tropical storm last week, Damrey triggered rains in the Philippines that killed at least 18 people.
Typhoons frequently hit Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong and southern China throughout the summer and autumn.
BBC News - September 28, 2005.
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