Typhoon Nesat Heads Toward Vietnam

HONG KONG — A powerful typhoon that forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes on an island in southern China appeared to have caused little damage Friday and was sweeping away from the country toward Vietnam.

Typhoon Nesat was expected to make landfall in Vietnam late Friday or early Saturday, after flooding streets on China's Hainan island on Thursday. Hainan authorities had plenty of time to prepare for the storm as it churned across the South China Sea from the Philippines, where it killed at least 43 people and left 30 missing earlier in the week.

Authorities evacuated 300,000 people, canceled flights, closed schools, suspended ferry services and recalled fishing boats as the storm approached, and the preparations appeared to have paid off with little damage reported on the island.

That was also the case in Hong Kong, which wasn't directly hit by the storm but saw wild weather Thursday as the system passed offshore.

In the Philippines, more than 160,000 people were still in evacuation centers Friday, three days after Nesat tore a path across the country's main island and triggered some of the worst flooding in the capital in decades.

Even as the weather improved with some sunshine, more misery hit residents of Bulacan province just north of Manila when three dams released excess water, flooding farmland and sending residents in towns downstream wading through neck-deep waters.

Bulacan Gov. Willy Alvarado said he called dam administrators to temporarily stop the release of water, which he said unleashed flooding on "unprecedented" levels.

Army and police rescuers distributed food and other relief goods to those stranded on rooftops in Calumpit and Hagonoy townships in Bulacan.

Preparations were also under way as a new typhoon headed toward the northern Philippines. It was expected to hit over the weekend.

Overall, damage from Typhoon Nesat was estimated at $91 million in the Philippines. No estimates have been given yet for damage to Hainan.

___

Associated Press writer Teresa Cerojano in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.

Comments

[PRONESE]

08:27 AM on 09/30/2011

As long as it is not headed towards New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.
Forget about it. The MSM does not care.
More Coffee...
R/ PRONESE

[cuoi]

08:20 AM on 09/30/2011

Just what Vietnam needs...invaded by China (you don't hear about that in the news reports) and soon to be invaded by a typhoon. A marker in a rice paddy in Song Ve showed the last flood about 15 feet above the paddy. The whole town is turned into the seaside with these storms.

[Lost Rights]

08:20 AM on 09/30/2011

One article says Asian monsoons are intensifying because of CO2 in the atmosphere, ie. Global Warming.
Its ironic that it seems Asian countries where we have outsourced the most jobs to, are getting hit even worse than the USA. I wonder if those leaders in Asia who let the US send them their manufacturing because of low wages and lax pollution laws are questioning their decisions? Probably not because they are rich, I really hope some of the workers start questioning their futures with the pollution and 'intensified monsoons', as if they are not intensive enough already, as anyone who has lived there knows.

[1differentdrummer]

05:36 AM on 09/30/2011

Tropical weather can be a real bear. Then you get an assortment of critters like poisonous reptiles displaced, swimming around, too. Tough times for the people. It's sad.

[FogBelter]

02:53 AM on 09/30/2011

I was watching a broadcast from ABSCBN tonight, one of the Philippine Networks, of the aftermath of the Typhoon and it was horrendous. The Typhoon caused tremedous damage across the island of Luzon, from Isabela province in the north, to the Bicol region southeast of Manila. The flooding was everywhere. In this same broadcast I saw the most tragic thing. A news crew was with a farmer in Pampanga who came across the body of his drowned 14 year-old daughter. My heart just sunk. In the Philippines they don't sanitize their coverage the way American Networks do, so the whole experience of this poor man was just presented straight. It's one thing to think about the losses of a disaster like this in abstract, and quite another to see a man's heart break when he comes upon the body of his child.

Very sad situation, I wish everyone affected by this Typhoon the best in coming through it. We forget how lucky we are when our brothers and sisters, half a world away, are enduring such calamity.

[outasite]

02:13 AM on 09/30/2011

43 dead in the Philippines, how sad.

[TomMartin]

12:54 AM on 09/30/2011

At least 43 people killed in the Philippines, that is so sad. My condolences to the families.