Vietnam Rushes Food to Typhoon-Hit Areas
Date: 30-Sep-05
Country: VIETNAM
Author: Ho Binh Minh
With 54 people dead or missing in the north, a letter from Khai read out on state television asked the Fatherland Front, the Communist Party's mass organisation, to appeal to the nation for help.
Khai also urged provincial governments "to organise for the people living in the areas with high risk of landslides and flash floods to move to safety".
State-run Vietnam Television said salt farmers on the northern coast, where the typhoon struck, were without food and local authorities had run out of their stocks of noodles.
"In the past two days many families have run out of foodstuff," it said.
The government said 10 kg of rice per month will be distributed to each family in areas devastated by Typhoon Damrey -- Khmer for elephant -- which came ashore on Tuesday before moving to Laos.
State media said cholera had erupted in many places even though the health ministry was sending experts and medical aid.
So far, soldiers had recovered the bodies of 25 of the 51 people swept away in Yen Bai province, 180 km (110 miles) northwest of Hanoi, a provincial official told Reuters.
"The search is still under way, so we have no final toll yet," he said.
WIDESPREAD DAMAGE
State television said 32 bodies had been found while one person was reported killed by a landslide in the neighbouring province of Lao Cai and two more died in Hoa Binh.
The television showed pictures of flattened houses, submerged schools and bodies wrapped in plastic.
Three people drowned as floods struck Phu Tho province and two died in Nghe An and Ninh Binh, state media said.
Seven died in similar torrents in Thailand while China and the Philippines each reported 16 deaths.
The deaths took the known toll to at least 84 in Damrey's rampage across the main Philippine island of Luzon, the southern Chinese island of Hainan -- where the economic damage was estimated at $1.2 billion -- Vietnam, Laos and northern Thailand.
In some areas of Vietnam hit by Damrey's 130-kph (80-mph) winds and 5-metre (16-foot) sea surges on Tuesday, thousands of people were being evacuated for a second time as rivers swelled and breached sea dykes still posed a danger.
About 330,000 people were evacuated in advance of the arrival of Damrey.
The areas likely to face floods were in Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces, the government said.
It has urged workers to speed up dyke repairs and pump out water to help farmers finish harvesting their rice in a region which is Vietnam's second-most important producer of the staple food after the Mekong Delta in the south.
The government has yet to come up with an estimate of the overall damage, but power supplies and telecommunications were hit and thousands of homes swamped.
The typhoon did not hit the Central Highlands coffee belt further to the south and had no impact on crude oil output as Vietnam's offshore rigs are well to the south.
