Up to 15km of a protective dyke have been destroyed by Typhoon Damrey in the two provinces in northern Vietnam hardest-hit by the storm, local officials said on Tuesday afternoon.
”About 13km of dykes are under the water now. Over 45 000 soldiers, militiamen and volunteers have been mobilised to help people in coastal areas,” said Tran Quang Trung, a flood-control official from Thanh Hoa province, 150km south of Hanoi.
In neighbouring Nam Dinh province, protective dykes have been breached in at least three districts, according to local officials contacted by telephone.
One person has been reported killed in Thanh Hoa province, and six have been injured after a house collapse, according to Vietnam’s state-run radio station Voice of Vietnam, but officials have yet to confirm any fatalities or injuries.
About 18 000ha of freshwater shrimp pools and paddy fields have been destroyed in Nam Dinh province, said Nguyen Van Thanh, deputy head of the flood-control office.
Tens of thousands of houses in Thanh Hoa and Nam Dinh have also reportedly been destroyed, though officials were unable to provide more accurate numbers.
More than 300 000 people from coastal areas in three provinces were moved, in some cases forcibly, to higher ground.
Typhoon Damrey, which means elephant in Khmer, killed 16 people on the Chinese island of Hainan on Monday, and eight people in the Philippines last week.
The typhoon has now diminished in strength and passed into neighbouring Laos. It is now gusting at about 60kph.
China cleaning up
China’s south-eastern province of Hainan was cleaning up on Tuesday after Typhoon Damrey tore through the island, killing at least 16 people and causing extensive damage.
The typhoon, packing winds of 200kph, pummeled Hainan on Monday, uprooting trees, flooding roads and causing an island-wide power blackout.
The civil affairs ministry said that by Monday night the storm had caused nearly 8,5-billion yuan ($1,05-billion) in damages in Hainan, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, while 436 000 people had been evacuated.
Hainan Vice-Governor Wu Changyuan said 20 000 homes had been flattened on the island province, while 380km of roads had been damaged and 704 000ha of cropland ruined, Xinhua news agency said.
By Tuesday evening, Xinhua put economic losses at 10-billion yuan and the death toll at 16.
Extensive damage to Hainan’s electrical grid will also require costly repairs, while the island’s oil industry is facing damage to facilities and potential cutbacks in production, press reports said.
About 3,9-million residents of Hainan and another 1,8-million people in Guangdong to the north were affected by the storm, the civil affairs ministry said.
The central government ordered emergency and rescue procedures to begin immediately, and about 500 tents have been airlifted to the hardest-hit areas, said the ministry.
Press reports said the storm was the biggest to hit Hainan in 30 years. Residents of Guangdong’s coastal county of Xuwen said it was the strongest storm to hit their area in 60 years.
Hainan’s offshore oil production is expected to be affected by the storm, Xinhua said, but it is too early to assess the damage.
Agricultural production, especially the rice, rubber and banana harvests, are also expected to be affected, it said. — Sapa-AFP, Sapa-DPA