Heavy rain claims 30 in Cambodia

October 01, 2013, 

PHNOM PENH: At least 30 people in Cambodia have died in recent floods caused by heavy rains and the Mekong River overflowing its banks, a disaster relief official said on Monday.

Keo Vy of Cambodia’s disaster management committee the floods have also forced more than 9,000 families to flee their homes and destroyed nearly 100,000 hectares of rice fields.

He added that nearly 67,000 houses were damaged or submerged, as well as 513 schools, 300 Buddhist pagodas and 25 health centers. Nine of the country’s 24 provinces have been affected so far, he said.

Four people died Sunday night when their car drove into a flooded pond in the eastern province of Prey Veng, police said.

The government warned that the rains will continue as Typhoon Wutip headed toward neighboring Vietnam late on Monday.

Fatalities and dislocations caused by floods are an annual problem for Cambodia at this time of year. About 250 people were killed in 2011 in the worst flooding in a decade, according to the government.

This year’s flooding death toll already has exceeded the 14 people reported killed by flooding in the relatively dry year of 2012.

On the other hand, Vietnam evacuated tens of thousands of people from high-risk coastal areas on Monday as a powerful typhoon that left dozens of fishermen missing in the South China Sea slammed into the country.

China deployed navy warships and aircraft to search for survivors after three Chinese fishing boats sank in rough waters whipped up by Typhoon Wutip.  Tropical storm Wutip lashed central Vietnam after sinking at least two Chinese fishing boats near the Paracel Islands, leaving 75 fishermen missing, officials said.

The storm uprooted trees, cut power lines and damaged more than 1,000 houses. There was no immediate word of injuries, flooding or major structural damage.

Vietnam’s national weather center said Wutip had weakened from a typhoon to a tropical storm by the time it made landfall. It was packing sustained winds of 117 kilometers per hour, it said.

Schools in five central provinces closed and the coast guard told 61,000 fishing boats with 303,000 crew members to take shelter.

By nightfall, Wutip had blown the roofs off of more than 1,000 houses in one district alone, local government official Pham Huu Thao said. TV footage showed uprooted trees and deserted city streets in central towns close to the storm’s centre.

Wutip sank at least two Chinese fishing ships as it neared the coast near the Paracel Islands, leaving 75 fishermen missing, according to the website of the Hainan government in south China. Two vessels sank on Sunday and contact with a third has been lost, it said.

Wutip was the strongest typhoon to gather off Vietnam this season. The most powerful Asian storm this year was Typhoon Usagi, which caused at least 33 deaths in the Philippines and China earlier in September.

Vietnam is prone to floods and storms which kill hundreds of people and cause millions of dollars in damage each year.

Agencies