Vietnam prepares for storm that shut Manila

By Grant McCool

HANOI (Reuters) - Thousands were evacuated, flights cancelled and fishing boats called in on Saturday as Typhoon Xangsane whipped towards the Vietnam coast after leaving a trail of destruction in the Philippines that killed at least 61.

Typhoon Xangsane, which means "elephant" in the Lao language, was forecast to hit along the 1,000-km (600-mile) coast of central Vietnam late on Saturday or early on Sunday with torrential rains that could cause flooding and landslides.

"The typhoon is extremely powerful and is expected to affect a large area," the national meteorology centre said.

An official in the central resort city of Danang said: "We are expecting the worst and right now we are focussing on the evacuation of people living near the coast."

Weather officials said, however, that the storm would skirt the coffee-growing area of the Central Highlands. Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee exporter after Brazil.

The path of the storm showed it landing in Quang Ngai, the province where Vietnam is building its first oil refinery.

Xangsane was a category 4 storm in the South China Sea that can carry winds of 211-250 km (132-156 miles) per hour, according to http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com. On Saturday, its winds were measured at up to 150 kph (93 mph) with gusts of 185 kph.

It forecast the storm would hit the coast of mostly rural, densely populated Vietnam at about 1800 GMT on Saturday (1 a.m. Sunday in Vietnam).

In the Philippines, the typhoon killed 61 people, injured 81 and 69 were still missing, officials said. The National Disaster Coordinating Council said about 15,000 houses had been either destroyed or damaged and nearly 300 million pesos ($5.9 million) worth of crops and fisheries lost.

Each year, hundreds if not thousands of people in the Philippines archipelago and Vietnam are killed, displaced and their homes and land damaged by tropical storms.

MANILA CLEANS UP

Around 20 percent of the Philippines' sprawling capital Manila of 12 million people and nearby towns in four provinces remained without electricity, water and communication services.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo sent 2,000 soldiers on Saturday to help emergency workers clean up south of Manila. About 40,000 people remained in shelters two days after Xangsane shut down Manila's financial markets, public offices and schools.

Officials said it could take up to a week to clear and repair the capital at a cost of 210 million pesos ($4.2 million).

In Vietnam, authorities were working to evacuate nearly 185,000 people, officials said. State media quoted the National Flood and Storm Prevention Committee as saying it was calling on fishing vessels to take shelter but it had been unable to contact 522 fishing boats with 4,766 fishermen still at sea.

Around 440 foreign tourists in the UNESCO-Heritage town of Hoi An had been evacuated. Vietnam Airlines grounded all flights to the region along with its flights to Taiwan.

The trans-Viet train that runs the length of the country from Hanoi in the north to Ho Chi Minh City in the south was also halted.

News.scotsman.com

Thousands homeless in Vietnam killer storm

Hanoi (dpa) - Tens of thousands of people were homeless by Typhoon Xangsane in central Vietnam Tuesday as the death toll from the storm rose to 41, officials said.

"Local authorities are bracing to supply needy people with food and water, and military forces are helping them repair their homes," said Nguyen Dong, an official in the storm-response department of Danang, the city worst-hit by Xangsane.

More than 10,000 homes were destroyed and at least 200,000 houses had their roofs torn off in the storm, according to state media figures.

Schools remained closed, and electricity had only been partially restored in Danang and nearby Quang Nam provinces after Xangsane barrelled into Vietnam Sunday morning, days after hitting the Philippines, which has so far reported 219 dead in Xangsane and heavy rains that followed the storm.

While Danang had mostly restored electrical service by Tuesday afternoon, outlying provinces were struggling to clear debris. The main road in Quang Binh province to the Laos border remained cut by landslides, said Nguyen Ngoc Giai of the provincial storm department.

"We are supplying instant noodles and drinking water to those who have lost their houses," Giai said.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Tuesday ordered 1,500 tons of rice to be sent from the national stockpile to Danang, Quang Nam and Thua Thien Hue provinces, according to a government report.

Estimates of damage from the storm topped 600 million dollars in Danang and Quang Nam provinces alone, officials there said.

The official count of typhoon deaths rose to 41 Tuesday with Danang accounting for 24 of those deaths, an official with the national storm and flood committee said.

The figure included 27 killed when the typhoon struck and the rest drowning in floods caused by heavy rains.

Bangkokpost.com

The Typhoon has changed into a tropical depression and unfortunately has brought lots of rain to the NE of Thailand