Vietnam prepares for Parma as storm to make landfall | Look At Vietnam

Vietnam banned all boats along the northern coast from heading to sea as Tropical Storm Parma moved over the Gulf of Tonkin and headed for the country after leaving more than 300 people dead in the Philippines and China.

Vietnam’s National Committee for Flood and Storm Control said on its website the storm is bringing winds as high as 88 kilometers (55 miles) per hour along with heavy rain as it approaches the coast.

These conditions are forecast to remain in effect until about midday on Wednesday, it said.

The committee ordered local authorities to evacuate people in areas that may be affected by tidal surge from the northern province of Quang Ninh to Ha Tinh by 7 p.m. local time as the storm is moving toward the coast line at high speed, according to an update posted on the committee’s website Tuesday. All rescue forces will have to be on stand-by for immediate action when required, the statement said.

Parma’s center may be located about 130 kilometers east of the coast near Hanoi by 7 p.m. local time, according to another statement on the government’s website Tuesday. Parma is forecast to weaken to a tropical depression after crossing the coast.

The system is threatening to make its fifth landfall in a third country, after crossing the Philippines island of Luzon three times last week, leaving at least 311 people dead. Parma hit China’s southern island of Hainan Monday, killing at least three people.

The storm is forecast to cross the Vietnamese coast south of Hanoi later Tuesday or early Wednesday, the US Joint Typhoon Warning Center said in its latest advisory.

Capsized boat

Three people died in China after their boat was capsized in the storm off Wanning city, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Hainan Provincial Emergency Response Office.

In the Philippines, forty-eight people remain missing in Luzon while 80,262 are in evacuation centers, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said in a report Tuesday.

Vietnam was hit by Typhoon Ketsana on Sept. 29, leaving 163 people dead and 11 missing, according to the Vietnamese government.

Ketsana left 337 people dead and 37 missing in the Philippines when it crossed Luzon as a tropical storm three days earlier.

Source: Bloomberg