Tens of thousands flee Vietnam typhoon

More than 70 people are still missing after Chinese fishing boats sink.

More than 70 people missing after Chinese fishing boats sink

HANOI // Tens of thousands of people were removed from high-risk coastal areas of Vietnam yesterday as a powerful typhoon slammed into the country.

The storm has already left dozens of fisherman missing in the South China Sea.

China deployed navy warships and aircraft to search for survivors after three Chinese fishing boats sank in rough waters whipped up by Typhoon Wutip.

More than 70 people had been reported missing by yesterday, Beijing’s official Xinhua news agency said, citing maritime authorities.

Vietnam closed schools, ordered all boats ashore and moved about 70,000 people to shelters in vulnerable areas along its central coastline, as high winds and heavy rains uprooted trees and tore the roofs off houses.

Wutip made landfall on Vietnam’s central coast soon after 5pm local time, packing winds of up to 103kph and gusts of up to 133kph, according to Vietnam’s National Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Centre.

Authorities scrambled to move people from areas at risk of landslides and flash floods, as soldiers joined efforts to build walls of sandbags around coastal villages.

“We have evacuated thousands of people, prepared vehicles, mobilised 5,000 police and soldiers,” Nguyen Duc Cuong, a local communist party official in Quang Tri province, told state-run VTV.

Torrential rain and strong winds battered the neighbouring Quang Nam province, with the popular tourist town of Hoi An affected by heavy flooding.

“This is a big typhoon with strong wind and heavy rain and we urge people to stay overnight in shelters,” Nguyen Van Bong, an official in nearby Ky Anh district, told state television.

Local authorities will be “on duty around the clock” to ensure that the area’s reservoirs and vast hydroelectric dams are not damaged or made unsafe by the typhoon, he said.

People in central Vietnam said there were sporadic power cuts in several districts.

The country is hit by an average of between eight and 10 tropical storms every year, often causing heavy material and human loss, as well as frequent flooding.

In recent weeks floods have killed at least 24 people in Vietnam and claimed 30 lives in Cambodia, as well as 22 in Thailand.

Cambodian police said four people including two children, believed to be Syrians, died late on Sunday when their car was swept away in flood waters.

In China, the president, Xi Jinping, called for an “all-out rescue effort” urging local authorities to “do their utmost to find the missing or stranded and minimise casualties” caused by the typhoon, Xinhua said. The Chinese boats, which were together carrying 88 fishermen, sank after they attempted to navigate gales near the disputed Paracel Islands, about 330km from China’s southern coast.

China’s maritime authority on Sunday raised its alert on the typhoon to orange, the second-highest of four levels, Xinhua reported.

Storm tides might strike the provinces of Guangdong, Hainan and Guangxi, it said, citing the National Marine Environmental Forecasting Centre.

The Paracel Islands are claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan, but Chinese fishermen often travel there in search of bigger hauls.

Last week, Typhoon Usagi left at least 25 people dead after crashing ashore in southern China, throwing transport systems into chaos and leaving tens of thousands of airline passengers stranded in Hong Kong.

China’s civil affairs ministry said 226,000 people were relocated due to the storm and that more than 7,100 houses collapsed or were badly damaged.

* Agence France-Presse