Hanoi, September 28: Four days of floods killed at least 17 people and left six missing in central Vietnam, the country’s Central Steering Committee for Flood and Storm Control said Monday.
Heavy rains destroyed more than 9,600 homes and flooded some 2,500 hectares of rice and 5,800 hectares of vegetables, officials said. Twenty three fishing boats were reported sunk.
The Central Hydro-Meteorological Forecast Center said a low pressure zone over the South China Sea caused rainfall of 300-400 millimetres since Thursday in the five central provinces.
It warned Monday that those provinces are also likely to be hit by tropical storm Ketsana Wednesday, with wind speeds of over 120 kilometres per hour, likely causing more floods.
In the Philippines, Ketsana caused the heaviest rains since 1967, killing at least 73 people and displacing more than 330,000.
—–Agencies