[vnforum] Vietnam flood deaths hit 440

[ken...@webmail.netimages.com]

[ Viet Search Engine on VietGATE http://www.vietgate.net ]

[vnforum] - Mesg from ken...@webmail.netimages.com

HANOI, Oct 14 (Reuters) - At least 440 people have now died in floods
throughout Vietnam since August and recent rains are expected to boost water
levels again in coming days in the worst-hit Mekong Delta, officials said on
Saturday.

The southern region anti-flood committee said 360 people had been reported dead
in the Delta by late Friday, 260 of them children.

A committee official told Reuters Delta water levels, which had been receding
gradually upstream in recent weeks, were expected to rise slowly again due to
upstream rains and high sea tides downstream.

Heavy rains in the past week have swelled several rivers in central provinces
and media reports said the streets of the historic town of Hoi An town in
central Quang Nam province were flooded for the second time in a week on
Friday.

The spreading floods have killed 29 people in central and southern provinces
north of the Delta in the past week, while 51 died in a flash floods in
northern Vietnam early this month.

The latest rains have been brought by a tropical low pressure system which
weather reports said was some 160 km (100 miles) southwest of China's Hainan
island on Friday night and moving northwest at 10 km (six miles) per hour.

The Delta floods, the worst in 40 years, are not expected to recede fully until
late November and will delay planting of Vietnam's main winter-spring rice
crop.

Saturday's Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper said the Agriculture Ministry had asked
the government for 90 billion dong ($6.3 million) to rebuild dykes and other
damaged infrastructure and for 5,000 tonnes of rice seedlings for poor farmers.

The official said about a quarter of a million people had had to flee their
homes in the Delta, where more than 800,000 houses had been inundated in eight
provinces.

Many evacuees have been camped for weeks on crumbling earth dykes, short of
food and with no fresh water, raising fears of diseases like cholera and
dengue.

---------------------------
VNForum Archive at
http://tin.le.org/archive/

To SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE to vnforum, send email to majo...@saigon.com
with one of the following text lines:

subscribe vnforum
or
unsubscribe vnforum

in the BODY of your message.