Typhoon, floods claim 122 lives in Asia

KATHMANDU, Thursday (AFP) - Typhoon Damrey petered out after killing at least 71 people and cutting a swathe of destruction in a week-long sweep through East Asia, while elsewhere landslides triggered by heavy rains killed 51 in Nepal.

Damrey was downgraded to a tropical depression as wind speeds dropped to just 38 kilometres (23 miles) per hour from a high of around 200 kilometres per hour, according to the Hong Kong Observatory.

The storm killed 36 people in Vietnam, 16 in the Philippines, 16 in southern China and three in Thailand, where it caused widespread flooding in the north. Five people have been reported missing there.

Late Wednesday, Vietnam Television (VTV) reported 32 deaths in the northern province of Yen Bai in flash floods sparked by the typhoon. Two deaths each were reported earlier in the provinces of Nam Dinh and Thanh Hoa.

"The flooding occurred all of a sudden, we were so frightened that we left our property and fled," a Yen Bai resident told the television. "The waters rose extremely quickly."

In Kathmandu, police and rescue workers said they feared the death toll from landslides triggered by floods in western Nepal may rise higher than the current 51.

"The death toll from landslides late Monday has risen to 49" in far western Nepal, a senior police officer told AFP, adding that two other people died in a landslide late Monday in the same remote region.

The police officer said emergency workers feared the death toll could be higher but had been unable to reach the sites of the landslides.

The landslides were triggered by several days of heavy rain at the end of South Asia's monsoon season. In Vietnam, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai was shown on VTV telling an emergency meeting that the greatest priority was to reinforce the network of dykes that had been breached.

"At the same time we have to encourage the social organisations and local authorities to help people restore their livelihood," he said.

A central weather official said earlier that the typhoon, which he described as the most violent to hit Vietnam in a decade, caused damage worth tens of millions of dollars.

In China the civil affairs ministry said the storm had caused nearly 8.5 billion yuan (1.05 billion dollars) in damage in Hainan, Guangdong and Guangxi provinces as of Monday night, while 436,000 people had been evacuated.