Flooding and typhoon kill 34 leave Vietnam under 3 feet of water
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Flooding and typhoon kill 34 leave Vietnam under 3 feet of water*
From correspondents in Than Hoa, Vietnam
October 07, 2007 02:16pm
Article from: Reuters
A TYPHOON, floods and landslides have killed 34 people, cut power and
closed roads in Vietnam.
The government storm prevention committee said that at least 19 people
were missing in the aftermath of typhoon Lekima which slammed the
central provinces on Wednesday night.
Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces were hit hardest by torrential rains,
strong winds blowing off roofs and floods submerging entire villages.
“We have not seen flooding like this in 20 years,” Nghe An provincial
official Nguyen Xuan Hanh said.
“It was so fast and so out of the blue.”
In August, a storm and subsequent floods killed nearly 80 people in
several central provinces.
At the time, officials said hundreds of thousands of people faced food
shortages.
Helicopters yesterday dropped food to stranded villagers as rescuers
waded through chest-high water to help people to safety.
A dyke on the Buoi river in Thanh Hoa broke, causing extensive flooding,
a government report said.
On Friday, officials said that police and soldiers helped move about
22,000 people to higher ground away from a dam in the same province.
Officials said they were having difficulty providing emergency supplies
to thousands of people.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies was
also providing assistance.
The storm and floods destroyed about 100,000 homes mainly in central
provinces and 15,000ha of rice crops.
The three-month flood and storm season often ends this month in Vietnam,
which faces up to 10 storms a year, causing millions of dollars in
damage and killing hundreds of people.