Thousands were evacuated, flights cancelled and fishing boats told to seek shelter yesterday as Typhoon Xangsane whipped towards the Vietnam coast after killing at least 61 people in the Philippines.
Typhoon Xangsane, which means "elephant" in the Lao language, was forecast to hit along the 1,000-km coast of central Vietnam late yesterday or early today with torrential rains that could cause flooding and landslides.
Vietnam Television reported more than 200,000 people in four central provinces had been evacuated in the biggest such operation in three decades.
"The wind is getting stronger and stronger here, we expect the storm to make landfall late tonight or very early tomorrow morning," said an official of the flood and storm prevention committee in the central city of Danang.
"We have closed the airport and completed the evacuation of all people living in vulnerable areas." State-run VTV showed footage of residents in Quang Nam province using sandbags and digging tunnels to hide from the storm.
In the Philippines, the typhoon killed 61, injured 81 and 69 were still missing, officials said. They said about 15,000 houses had been destroyed or damaged and nearly 300 million pesos ($5.9 million) worth of crops and fisheries lost.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo sent 2,000 soldiers yesterday to help emergency workers clean up south of Manila.
About 40,000 people remained in shelters two days after Xangsane shut down Manila's financial markets, public offices and schools.
Vietnam Airlines said it had grounded all domestic flights until today while international flights would be re-routed to avoid the storm.
Weather officials said that the storm would skirt the coffee-growing area of the Central Highlands. Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee exporter after Brazil.
Xangsane was a category four storm in the South China Sea that can carry winds of 211-250 km per hour, according to www.tropicalstormrisk.com
The Vietnam national weather centre said the typhoon's winds were measured at up to 149 kph and it was moving west at 20 kph. It forecast waves as high as 10 metres.
The storm tracking site forecast the typhoon would hit the coast of mostly rural, densely populated Vietnam at about 6 p.m. GMT yesterday (1 a.m. Sunday in Vietnam).
State media quoted the National Flood and Storm Prevention Committee as saying it was calling on fishing vessels to take shelter but it had been unable to contact about 500 boats.
Each year, hundreds if not thousands of people in the Philippines archipelago and Vietnam are killed, displaced and their homes and land damaged by tropical storms.
Around 20 per cent of the Philippines' sprawling capital Manila of 12 million people and nearby towns in four provinces remained without electricity, water and communication services.
Officials said it could take up to a week to clear and repair the capital at a cost of 210 million pesos ($4.2 million).