Typhoon Peipah on course to hit Vietnam
Flooded parts of central Vietnam are being threatened with more heavy rain with the approach of Typhoon Peipah.
Tropical storm Peipah formed out in the Pacific, east of the Philippines last week. The storm crossed the north of the Philippines on Tuesday leaving around six people dead and hundreds homeless in Luzon. The storm intensified as it entered the South China Sea, becoming a typhoon, and is now heading west at 9 mph (14 km/h) towards Vietnam.
According to the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre, Peipah is generating sustained winds of up to 75 mph (120 km/h). This makes it a category 1 storm, the weakest on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
With typhoon Peipah predicted to make landfall in central and southern areas by this coming weekend, residents are likely to see further serious flooding. Residents living in low-lying areas and near mountain slopes have been warned to take all necessary measures against flash flooding and landslides.
Over the past month Vietnam has seen its fair share of heavy rain, flooding and landslides which have claimed 114 lives and injured over 200. With the approach of Peipah, Vietnam is bracing itself once more. Further updates will appear here…Flooded parts of central Vietnam are being threatened with more heavy rain with the approach of Typhoon Peipah.
Tropical storm Peipah formed out in the Pacific, east of the Philippines last week. The storm crossed the north of the Philippines on Tuesday leaving around six people dead and hundreds homeless in Luzon. The storm intensified as it entered the South China Sea, becoming a typhoon, and is now heading west at 9 mph (14 km/h) towards Vietnam.
According to the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre, Peipah is generating sustained winds of up to 75 mph (120 km/h). This makes it a category 1 storm, the weakest on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
With typhoon Peipah predicted to make landfall in central and southern areas by this coming weekend, residents are likely to see further serious flooding. Residents living in low-lying areas and near mountain slopes have been warned to take all necessary measures against flash flooding and landslides.
Over the past month Vietnam has seen its fair share of heavy rain, flooding and landslides which have claimed 114 lives and injured over 200. With the approach of Peipah, Vietnam is bracing itself once more. Further updates will appear here…
By Denise Kane - BBC News - November 7, 2007.
Floods kill 82 in Vietnam, typhoon likely at weekend
HANOI - Dozens of people were killed in central Vietnam trying to cross streams or salvage wood in floodwaters, raising the death toll to 82 ahead of a typhoon due to land at the weekend, government reports said on Wednesday.
Storms and floods have killed nearly 200 people since early October. The disasters caused property and crop damage of $300 million and delayed the coffee harvest in the Central Highlands coffee belt, squeezing supplies to global markets.
In the latest inundation since Oct. 26, at least 82 people had been killed in nine provinces and Danang city, provincial disaster management committees said.
The government asked provincial authorities to alert people to the danger in moving around while floodwaters were receding, as dozens more deaths were reported in the past two days as people tried to salvage wood and cross streams.
Floods in Quang Tri province could help spread bird flu from its Gio Linh district, where officials confirmed the virus in ducks last month, an Agriculture Ministry official was quoted as saying.
Quang Tri is one of four provinces in Vietnam that have reported bird flu outbreaks among birds in the past month.
Hanoi also asked coastal provinces to warn fishermen as Typhoon Peipah, which killed five people in the Philippines before entering the South China Sea on Monday, headed for the Vietnam coast.
At least 9,000 fishermen were still off the southern provinces of Bac Lieu and Ba Ria-Vung Tau, the official Vietnam News Agency said.
The government said the area between the Paracels and the Spratly islands was extremely dangerous in the path of Typhoon Peipah, a Chinese word for a popular pet fish in Macau. Winds at the storm's centre were up to 133 km (83 miles) per hour.
The typhoon was heading southwest toward the central province of Khanh Hoa bordering Daklak, the country's top coffee growing province in the Central Highlands.
Rain was expected from Friday in Daklak and nearby coffee-growing provinces, Vietnamese forecasters said.
Reuters - November 7, 2007.
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