Typhoon death toll rises to 30 in Vietnam

Typhoon Xangsane, which hit Vietnam's central region on Sunday, has killed 30 people, left one missing and injured another 269 as of Tuesday afternoon, a local official told Xinhua.

Central Da Nang city, the first locality hit by the typhoon, has suffered the biggest human losses with 26 deaths, said Nguyen Sy Nuoi, vice head of the Flood and Storm Prevention Department in charge of the central region under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. He added that some other localities with fatalities include the central provinces of Quang Tri, Quang Nam and Quang Binh.

The typhoon, the 6th one striking Vietnam this year, also damaged nearly 230,000 houses, uprooted thousands of trees and electric poles, and inundated many hectares of subsidiaries crops and aquaculture ponds in the four central coastal localities of Thua Thien Hue, Da Nang, Quang Nam and Quang Ngai, causing total property losses of 6.4 trillion Vietnamese dong (VND) (over 402.5 million U.S. dollars).

The Vietnamese government has decided to offer Da Nang, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Nam a total of 1,500 tons of rice to help them overcome difficulties caused by the typhoon.

Source: Xinhua