Vietnam braces for Typhoon Sarika
October 17, 2016
As much as 90 centimeters (3 feet) of rain fell in some parts of central Vietnam, triggering flash flooding that killed at least 24 people and left four others missing, disaster officials said Monday.
The hardest hit province was Quang Binh, where 18 people were reported dead and three missing.
The heavy rains come as Vietnam braces for Typhoon Sarika, which killed two people in the Philippines and forced tens of thousands from their homes as it moved over the island nation over the weekend.
Typhoon Sarika is expected to hit Vietnam on Wednesday and is currently over the South China Sea.
Vietnamese authorities expect the Typhoon Sarika to impact 22 out of 63 provinces and have urged people to prepare for more flooding and landslides.
"We are worried. We have instructed district goverments to outline plans for evacuating people from high-risk areas to cope with the Typhoon," said disaster official Tran Le Dang Hung.
The heavy rains on Friday and Saturday destroyed nearly 1,000 homes and damaged another 120,000, as well as submerging roads, infrastructure and destroying crops and fish farms. Nearly half a million people have been displaced.
cw/rc (AP, dpa)