Vietnam used army helicopters yesterday to evacuate thousands stranded by Tropical Storm Kammuri, which has killed at least 113 people, as forecasters warned of more bad weather ahead.
Disaster relief workers continued searching for 45 people still missing since heavy rains pounded the mountainous north for three days starting last Friday, swelling rivers and triggering deadly mudslides and flash floods.
Troops were rushing water, food and medicines to villagers, many from ethnic minorities, who have remained isolated by floods and blocked roads and rail lines in the mostly poor region near the Chinese border.
Some 2,700 troops and helicopters have been mobilized to evacuate more than 5,000 residents to safer areas in the worst-hit Lao Cai and Yen Bai provinces, the national flood and storm control committee said.
Meteorologists warned that more rain storms would hit within one or two days.
In Lao Cai — where 49 people have died in the worst storms to hit in decades — hopes of finding the 37 still missing were now fading, said Thao A Tua, a provincial emergency services official.
“In several areas, mud and rocks from the mountains have buried entire villages,” he said. “The search effort has been difficult because we don’t have equipment and the digging has to be done manually. We are trying our best, but we really think they have all died. Their bodies might be buried below the rubble, and they could even have been swept away, down the Red River.”
Across the north, more than 670 houses have been destroyed, the central government said.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
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