Southeast Asia Was Hit Hard By Typhoon Ketsana! Death Toll Nears 400

ReliefWeb
Ketsana death toll nears 400 as new typhoon brews
Source: Agence France-Presse (AFP)
written by by Tran Thi Minh Ha
Thursday October 1, 2009

QUANG NAM, Vietnam, Oct 1, 2009 (AFP) - Millions of flood-hit survivors of Typhoon Ketsana across Southeast Asia waited for aid and braced for a possible new super storm Thursday as the death toll from the disaster climbed to 383.

One of the most destructive storms in recent years, Ketsana wreaked havoc in the Philippines at the weekend while still a tropical storm, then strengthened over the South China Sea to batter Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

The Philippines early Thursday raised the number of confirmed dead from Ketsana to 277, Vietnam to 92 and Cambodia to 14, with nearly three million people affected. No casualties were reported from Laos.

In Manila, nearly 700,000 people swamped makeshift government-run shelters amid fears that a storm east of the Philippines could develop into a "super typhoon" and lash areas still reeling from Ketsana.

"We are dealing with a very strong typhoon, so we should be at the highest level of preparedness," state weather bureau spokesman Nathaniel Cruz said as Typhoon Parma churned towards the country, with landfall expected Saturday.

Parma was packing gusts of up to 185 kilometres (114.7 miles) per hour (kph). The government defines a super typhoon as one with sustained winds of 175-200 kph and the potential to cause heavy damage.

Ketsana dumped the heaviest rains in more than four decades on Manila and surrounding areas, submerging most of the capital. Parma was set to hit to the north but it was raining in Manila already on Thursday.

The number of people known to have been affected by Ketsana in the Philippines rose to 2.5 million on Thursday, the government said.

Vietnam meanwhile intensified efforts to get food and water to stranded victims of Ketsana, which has been downgraded in intensity to a tropical depression since heading into Laos on Wednesday.

Some areas remained surrounded by floodwaters but military helicopters expected to make seven flights on Thursday to deliver instant noodles to the stricken areas, an army officer said.

Residents in Quang Nam province, near the heart of the area where Ketsana made landfall, have complained that official help has been slow to reach them, and officials said the scale of the disaster has made aid delivery difficult.

"We haven't received any relief or noodles or clean water from the authorities but we try to help each other," said Huynh Ba Phuong, 38, a construction worker living in a flooded house with his wife and two teenage children.

Authorities said the 92 victims whose deaths were announced by the national flood and storm control committee in Hanoi died mostly in landslides or by drowning in floodwaters. Another 19 people were missing.

In addition to almost 170,000 people who fled their homes with police and army help ahead of the typhoon, the United Nations estimated that 30,000 more moved voluntarily to the homes of relatives or left for other provinces.

In the historic tourist town of Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage site, water levels have begun going down, officials said. On Wednesday the old quarter was reachable only by boat and thousands of tourists were moved to higher ground.

In Cambodia, officials said thousands of people were affected by Ketsana, which destroyed hundreds of houses and flooded large swathes of Siem Reap province, which is home to the famed Angkor Wat temples.

Three more people died Wednesday, including one crushed when his house collapsed and two in flash floods, adding to the 11 who died on Tuesday, said Ly Thuch, deputy chief of the National Committee for Disaster Management.

"Thousands of people are estimated to be affected by typhoon Ketsana although we have not fully collected the figures," Ly Thuch told AFP before meeting humanitarian agencies to further assess the damage.

Typhoons Ketsana and Parma come as the Asia Pacific region is already under strain from a devastating earthquake in Indonesia and killer tsunamis in Samoa.