Tropical depression threatens more floods in Vietnam
HANOI - Vietnam is bracing formore floods as a newly formed tropical depression is forecast to trigger rains in central provinces where floods have killed at least 25 people since last week, according to the national weather bureau. With wind speed of up to 49 kilometres an hour, the depression was 260 kilometres off the central coast at 7 am Saturday and was moving west at 10-15 kilometres an hour, the National Hydrometeorology Forecast Centre said Saturday.
The centre forecasts that the depression will cause heavy rains in provinces already hit by flooding over the past month.
Floods triggered by heavy rains have already killed at least 25 people and left four others missing in central provinces since last week, according to the Central Flood and Storm Department.
The floods have also destroyed and inundated more than 15,000 houses and thousands of hectares of rice and other crops in the five central provinces of Quang Binh, Quang Tri, Thua Thien-Hue, Quang Nam and Quang Ngai.
So far this year, floods and storms have killed at least 203 people in Vietnam, including about 90 killed in Tropical Storm Lekima and in floods triggered by the storm in early October.
Deutsche Presse Agentur - November 3, 2007.
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