Vietnam evacuates thousands in typhoon's path

Hanoi, Sep 30: Vietnam is evacuating hundreds of thousands of people along its central coast and has halted flights to the region ahead of Typhoon Xangsane's landfall, which is expected late today or early tomorrow, officials said.

The typhoon, which killed at least 31 people and left a trail of destruction in the Philippines, was forecast to pound the 1,000-km (600-mile) coastline of central Vietnam with torrential rains that could cause flooding and landslides.

''The typhoon is extremely powerful and is expected to affect a large area,'' the national meteorology centre said in a report today.

Xangsane, which means ''elephant'' in the Lao language, was a category 4 storm in the South China Sea today with winds of 211-250 km per hour, according to www.tropicalstormrisk.com.

It forecast the storm to hit the coast of mostly-rural, densely-populated Vietnam at about 2330 GMT today (1 a.m. tomorrow in Vietnam).

Authorities were working to evacuate nearly 185,000 people, officials said. State media said around 440 foreign tourists in the UNESCO-Heritage town of Hoi An had been evacuated.

Vietnam Airlines grounded all flights to the region.

''We are expecting the worst, and right now we are focusing on the evacuation of people living near the coast,'' said an official at the Flood and Storm Prevention Commitee in the central resort city of Danang.

The path of the storm showed it landing in Quang Ngai, province where Vietnam is building its first oil refinery.

Meteorologists in the coffee-growing Daklak province told Reuters by telephone today that the typhoon would skirt the Central Highlands area where the crop will be harvested next month. The Southeast Asian country is the world's second-largest coffee exporter after Brazil.

''For now we think the coffee crop would be safe from the typhoon but too much rains could cause the cherries to fall early,'' said an official in Daklak.

State media quoted the National Flood and Storm Prevention Committee as saying it had not been able to make contact with 522 fishing vessels with 4,766 fishermen still at sea.

Reuters