Vietnam typhoon death toll at least 107

October 3, 2009
AFP

The death toll in Vietnam from Typhoon Ketsana, one of the worst disasters to hit the country in recent years, has risen to at least 107, officials says, bringing the total number of casualties to 441.

That figure came from an official at the national flood and storm control committee in Hanoi, who also listed 28 missing and 252 injured. He declined to be named.

The Danang office of the flood and storm committee, closer to the heart of the area where the typhoon made landfall last Tuesday, said there were 122 dead and 12 missing.

The heaviest tolls came in the central Vietnam fishing province of Quang Ngai, south of Danang, and in Kon Tum, a mountainous province with a large population of poor ethnic minority tribes. Both areas recorded 33 deaths, the Danang official said, also declining to be named.

Initial estimates of the damage in Vietnam shot up to $US587 million ($A675.06 million), according to government figures released on Friday for 10 out of 14 provinces affected by the typhoon.

Flood waters have been receding in much of the stricken region, leaving residents cleaning up the mess and tallying the damage to their farms and homes.

Vietnam suffers annually from tropical storms and typhoons, but this year's toll exceeds the deaths when Tropical Storm Durian killed at least 70 in the country's south, and Typhoon Xangsane left more than 70 dead in central Vietnam, both in 2006.

Ketsana has brought devastation across Southeast Asia, first killing at least 293 people in the Philippines last weekend before striking Vietnam. It also claimed 17 lives in Cambodia.

Details are slowly emerging from Laos, too, where on Saturday its Red Cross said Ketsana had killed 24 people.