148 dead, missing after storms hit northern Vietnam
VIETNAME: Vietnamese emergency services were Monday seeking to reach
isolated and flood-hit northern communities after tropical storm Kammuri
left at least 98 people dead and 50 missing over the weekend.
Flash-floods and landslides since Friday have cut major highway and
rail links to the mountainous region bordering southern China. The heavy
downpours have also knocked over trees and telephone and electricity
lines.
Thousands of troops and disaster relief personnel were using trucks
and boats to deliver water, food and medicines to residents in flooded
villages, with some people stranded on roofs by the murky waters.
"We have reached some areas that had been isolated for two days,"
Thao A Tua, a disaster relief official from worst-hit Lao Cai province,
told AFP.
"We are focusing on finding the people still missing. It's bad, we
are afraid they are dead and we'll have to recover their bodies."
Hundreds of foreign tourists were stuck in the scenic northern
region, which is dominated by ethnic minorities, but none were reported
to be among those killed or the 38 people injured in the disaster,
officials said.
The rains had stopped Monday but severed roads hampered relief
efforts.
"The traffic jams are very serious... and many vehicles and
passengers are stuck," central emergency relief authorities said in a
report. "Local inhabitants face many difficulties because there is not
enough food."
The Central Committee for Flood and Storm Control also ordered local
authorities to check dykes along the swollen Red and Thai Binh Rivers.
Across the northern region, more than 300 houses were destroyed, over
4,200 buildings flooded and suffered water damage, and about 8,700
hectares (21,500 acres) of crops were wiped out, said the central
government.
In worst-hit Lao Cai province, 37 people have been killed and 40
listed as missing, many feared dead under mountains of mud and rubble
that have slid down water-logged mountain sides and buried houses here.
Hanoi, Monday, AFP
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